


Knit Me Together

by QueenOfTheDreamers (QueenOfDreamers)



Series: Psalmody - A Saga of Hermione Granger and Severus Snape [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Part Two of Series, SSHG - Freeform, Teacher/Student Dynamic, age gap, snamione
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 15:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12610188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfDreamers/pseuds/QueenOfTheDreamers
Summary: "Darkness is not dark for you, and light shines as the day." Some are dead, and some are gone, and some are left behind, scrambling for sense in the darkness. Severus' and Hermione's stories resume amid the bleak altered realities created in "In The Shadow Of Your Wings." This is Book Two of the Psalmody series; please read "In The Shadow Of Your Wings" first.





	1. Chapter 1

If I take the wings of dawn

and dwell beyond the sea,

Even there your hand guides me,

your right hand holds me fast.

If I say, "Surely darkness shall hide me,

and night shall be my light" —

Darkness is not dark for you,

and night shines as the day.

Darkness and light are but one.

You formed my inmost being;

You  _knit me together_  in my mother's womb.

Psalm 139:9-13

* * *

**Prelude**

* * *

The last days of autumn made a hasty exit and Winter slipped upon Hogwarts like a wicked, frigid wraith. Hermione felt the chill of December's first morning in her very being as she descended the stone stairs to the Potions classroom.

The previous month, Professor Slughorn had returned to his post as Potions Master, and Hermione was actually grateful to no longer be subject to Severus' daily presence as her classroom teacher. It was one complication taken off her shoulders, at the very least.

As she walked into the Potions dungeon, the scent of fresh aconite blossoms reached Hermione's nostrils. Frowning, she wondered if they were to indeed brew Grand Wiggenweld Potion today, as Professor Slughorn had implied previously.

She set her cauldron and scales down upon a desk and began organizing her other supplies. Neville Longbottom wordlessly slipped into the seat beside her, his own materials clattering rather ungracefully as he prepared to attempt Potions work far beyond his mastery.

Over the past few weeks, Hermione had settled back into a quiet and comfortable friendship with Neville, particularly during lessons. Perhaps it was because they were all one another  _truly_  seemed to have left anymore, at least within House and Year. Seamus Finnigan seemed more interested in fraternizing with his latest female accomplice than with Neville. While Hermione had Luna (or at least the part of Luna's mind that paid attention), they did not have lessons together. So, every Potions or [Defense Against the] Dark Arts or Muggle Studies lesson, Hermione always sat beside Neville. They rarely conversed, and if they did, it was just small talk. But he was a reliable ally, she knew, and that fact required no conversation whatsoever.

Today, Neville cleared his throat and softly asked, "What are you doing for the holidays, Hermione?"

Her eyebrows crumpled in confusion and she turned to Neville, trying not to scoff as she asked, "Where would I go for the holidays, Neville?"

"Home." He said the word simply, as though it were obvious. He shrugged and shook his head. "I know you're married now, but surely you'll want to visit with your parents over Christmas? Having not seen them since summer?"

Hermione felt her eyes sear then, suddenly and without warning. She felt her mouth fall open, felt her breath catch almost painfully in her throat. She finally managed to swallow the lump there and lowered her eyes to her cauldron.

"I - they - they've gone on holiday to Australia," she lied, stammering over her own untruth as her own mind raced to the horrible final time she'd seen her mother's face. She could still see the very instant that all recognition, all maternal love, left her mother's eyes. It still sent a shockwave of physical pain through her.

Neville was silent in the fact of Hermione's blatant and clumsy lie. He, better than anyone in the world, understood what it meant to be an orphan with living parents. After all, his parents had both been alive his whole life, but he'd never once heard them say his name. Hermione felt shame flush through her veins at the way she was letting emotion boil up in her, since Neville had always handled his parents' debilitating torture with such grace. She did not wish to lie about her parents. Not to Neville, of all people.

"They don't know me anymore," she whispered at last, still staring down at the desk. "It's for their own safety. They're gone."

There was another long silence as Neville contemplated this. Then he reached wordlessly into his school bag and pulled out a small burlap pouch. He opened the pouch and very carefully extracted a few pieces of wrinkled blue wax paper, which he placed delicately upon the table in front of him. He looked down at them for a minute and then turned his face to Hermione.

"These are from my mum," he told her. "She gives me a Drooble's Best Blowing Gum wrapper every time I visit her. Gran always tells me to toss them into the bin; that they're useless. But, you see, they're all I have of her. The only thing she's ever given me… and they mean more to me than a million Galleons."

Neville put all the wrappers back into his pouch, touching the wax paper as if it were breakable glass. He kept one lone wrapper out on the table. He pulled the tie of the bag shut and tucked it back into his rucksack.

"Sometimes it is easier to pretend they're gone. but I think that would not be the right thing to do. I really hope one day you get to see your mum and dad again, Hermione."

Neville pushed the solitary Drooble's Best Blowing Gum wrapper on the desk toward Hermione, nodding to signify that it was a gift.

"Thank you, Neville." Hermione picked up the blue wrapper and stared down at it, not bothering now to fight away tears. "Thank you."

* * *

_Crack!_

Severus had arrived outside Malfoy Manor unannounced; this was a rare meeting that had been planned far enough in advance that no one's Dark Marks had needed triggering. Severus was thankful for that. His left arm had burned more in the past year than in his entire previous life.

But he was early, having left Hogwarts immediately after dinner in the Great Hall was finished. He'd headed straight out to the Apparition Point and had arrived fifteen minutes prior to the call time. He was usually one of the last ones to file into a meeting or Summoning, so his prompt arrival was a rare occasion indeed.

The house was seemingly empty when Severus walked through the front door, which was slightly ajar. It was also very cold. Couldn't anyone around here at least be bothered to cast Warming Charms or light fires in the myriad ornate fireplaces? Severus shivered a bit, quite against his will, as he climbed the stone stairs to the normal meeting space. But he paused near the top when he heard the sibilant voice of the Dark Lord mingling with the murmur of Bellatrix Lestrange.

He strained to listen, casting a silent  _Amplio Audito_. The sounds of the voices grew louder to Severus' ears, as though someone had cranked up the volume on a Muggle television.

"And the cup I gave you? It is -"

"Safe and sound, My Lord." Bellatrix's voice was a gentle hum, oddly soothing in tone, almost condescending. "It is in my vault at Gringott's. Impenetrable."

"Hmph." Voldemort scoffed a bit at Bellatrix's overconfidence. Then Severus heard him say, "bring in Aberforth. I want him here for the meeting."

"My Lord, he is hardly alive -"

"Do you question me, Bella?" The Dark Lord's voice was cold and hard as frozen iron then, and there was a beat of weighty silence.

"No, My Lord. Never," Bellatrix breathed. "I shall go and fetch him."

Severus briskly released himself from the amplification charm and held back, pretending he was just climbing the stairs when he saw Bellatrix's shadow rounding the corner.

"Oh," she acknowledged him coldly, sticking her chin upward in a haughty little gesture. "Hello, Snape. Good thing you're here early. He'd wanted to speak with you, I think."

An ugly sneer caused her lip to curl up, revealing her teeth, which had rotted after years in Azkaban. Severus nodded indifferently at Bellatrix and continued up the stairs past her. He reached the top landing and squared his jaw, throwing up every mental block he had in case his mind was invaded tonight.

_Dark, expansive skies. Bottomless lakes with glassy surfaces. Clouds and shadows and doors that lead nowhere._

When he felt his mind was sufficiently barricaded, Severus cleared his throat delicately and stepped into the dining room. Voldemort, as usual, was seated in the place of honor at the head of the table.

"Severus," he said in a low hiss, flashing Severus an eerie smile. He gestured toward one of the chairs with a majestic sweep of his bony grey arm and said, "Please, sit and talk with me."

"My Lord." As Severus pulled out the chair and sat, his consciousness wandered to what he had overheard. A cup, given from Voldemort to Bellatrix… seemingly for safekeeping, since she was keeping it at Gringotts. Why a cup? Why Bellatrix?

Well, Bellatrix because she was more loyal than anyone currently in Voldemort's retinue. She'd never once denied Voldemort, not even when it seemed an undeniable truth that the Dark Lord had fallen. Bellatrix had been his most devoted servant from the start. And Voldemort himself had told Severus that she loved him in a way none of the rest of them did.

Why a cup? An object that sounded so simple, and yet seemed to need protection that Bellatrix called "impregnable"?

It was a Horcrux, Severus thought with a fizzle of alarm. That was why. Whatever exactly this cup was, it was being kept in Bellatrix's Gringotts vault for safekeeping because it was a precious Horcrux.

And, undoubtedly, the Dark Lord was panicking a bit of late. He'd  _nearly_  caught Harry Potter, nearly lured the Boy Who Lived into a trap, but had been defeated by House Elf magic. In the weeks since, no one had been able to track Potter and Ginny Weasley down - not the infamous Snatchers, and not the general populace who had been informed that handing Harry Potter over would make them very rich.

"Severus, I've not yet received any happy news of an impending birth," Voldemort said without any further pretense, his terrible voice a smooth grating sound in the otherwise silent room. Severus felt his dark eyes go wide and he feigned ignorance as he said,

"Erm - no, My Lord. Indeed not. My wife has not yet conceived."

"You are making a valiant effort, I'm sure," Voldemort pronounced smoothly, rolling his pale serpentine eyes. Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, "Nonetheless, the issue at hand is that you have been married to the girl for two months and the only public image you've accomplished is that of the Headmaster wedding and bedding a student. Is there something wrong with her?"

Severus was silent for a brief moment, considering his words, and then he said carefully, "I believe it is very common, My Lord, for it to take quite a while for a pregnancy to occur… even in a healthy union such as mine. I would not be concerned for her health for a good many months yet -"

"You do not have the luxury of time in this matter, Severus." Voldemort's thin lips curled up a little when he saw his beloved snake Nagini ( _another damned Horcrux_ , Severus thought angrily) slinked up onto the table and curled up before him. She bobbed her head up as if asking him to pet her, and Voldemort acquiesced by coursing his skeletal fingers over the snake's head. Sounding bored, he prompted Severus, "There are spells and potions for issues such as this. I suggest you brew a batch of Ferax Elixir and dose the girl and yourself with it immediately. Also cast  _fecunditatem_  upon the girl's belly and yourself before each instance of the marital act. Test her in a few weeks. If these measures prove ineffective, then I believe she will have proven herself utterly useless, and we will find you a more fertile womb. A quick and visible pregnancy is essential for the public campaign of half-blood marriages."

Severus felt a shock of horror flush through him as he quickly tried to think through his options. Could they falsify a pregnancy? How? He could not bring himself to dose Hermione with the antidote of the contraceptive potion she'd taken, and then just as swiftly put a child inside of her. Not in this world. Not now.

But instead of voicing the objections screaming and rattling about in his brain, Severus merely nodded and flashed a little smirk toward the Dark Lord. "I shall begin brewing the Ferax Elixir as soon as possible, My Lord."

* * *

**Darkest Deceptions And Magical Forgeries**

 

* * *

 

Severus pulled out the chair at his desk and sat down heavily, letting out a bit of weary sigh. He'd spent a long while looking for the book he lay upon the desk before him, and had finally located it among his personally bookshelves with a Summoning Charm. He had decided to read through it in his old office in the dungeons - he did not want even the portraits of the dead to peek over his shoulder as he pored through the contents of this tome. He warded up the door of his office and examined the cover.

_Darkest Deceptions And Magical Forgeries_  by Megaera Brummagem.

It was a worn and beaten text from the late 19th century, published by a Dark witch infamous for having spent her life deceiving seventeen men into successive marriages before murdering them and taking their wealth for her own. Megaera Brummagem was best known for changing her appearance and taking on pseudonyms, hunting down unsuspecting wealthy Muggles and wizards and beguiling them just long enough to weasel her way onto the will. Then a carefully staged illness or accident would leave her wealthy, and she would disappear again.

_Darkest Deceptions and Magical Forgeries_  was only in print for six weeks before the Ministry of Magic banned it and burned every copy it could seize, claiming the terrible spells and potions recipes inside would encourage similar antisocial behavior. Severus had obtained this copy, the only one he knew to exist, decades previously from Othello Copperfield, the same book specialist who had tracked down  _Ende Of Deth_  for him.

Severus opened the thick book and drew his finger down the table of contents, pausing when he saw the words  _On Gravidity And Child-Bearing - Page 193._

He carefully turned the text until he reached the worn, yellow page as directed, and he scanned his black eyes over the unevenly printed text there.

' _At times, a witch (or her accompanying wizard) might find it of benefit to falsify a gestation. The author of this tome judges not those for whom this circumstance presents itself - the world has long demonstrated that a woman's purpose upon this Earth is ostensibly procreative in nature. There are times, however, when the illusion of pregnancy is far more beneficial than the actual production of a child._

_To this end, Madam Brummagem is pleased to put forth several options._

_First, there is the quick and abrupt illusion of an early abortive miscarriage. This scenario may prove itself useful in an unhappy marriage. It allows a witch to show she is fertile and has 'conceived,' and, yet, does not require the follow-through of a long, arduous pregnancy, a delivery, or of a birthed child._

_In order to achieve this illusion, a witch (or her accompanying wizard) may cast the incantation 'Praeceps Cruentamque.' The incantation should be cast upon the lower abdominal region, over the womb, thrice. Make a circular motion with the tip of the wand._

_The result of the incantation will be near-immediate feminine bleeding, cramping, and vomiting that will last for several hours to two days. This should achieve the illusion of a naturally terminated pregnancy.'_

Severus paused and sighed deeply. He considered whether or not this spell would be a viable solution for himself and Hermione. No, he realized. It wouldn't. They'd have to do it over and over again, and even then the Dark Lord would eventually simply say that Hermione was unable to carry a pregnancy 'properly' and would cast her aside, putting someone else in her place. Severus frowned and continued reading.

' _The second and more radical option is a potion which can be brewed to give the illusion of a developing pregnancy. This potion is called the Graviditate Elixir, and the admittedly complicated instructions may be found upon the following page._

_Madam Brummagem advises that this potion only be utilized by a witch who finds herself under most severe pressure to present the public illusion of pregnancy, but who has absolutely no desire or ability to birth or parent a child._

_The Graviditate Elixir works rather like Polyjuice Potion insofar as it must be taken continuously (once daily) or its effects will immediately wear off. If the Graviditate Elixir is dosed once daily, the witch will bear visible signs of pregnancy - a growing belly, mild to moderate nausea and vomiting, and other outward manifestations that she bears a child within her womb. However, there will in fact be nothing growing inside her; it shall be a false pregnancy. If at any moment the witch desires to cease and desist the deception, she need only stop taking the Graviditate Elixir, and within several days, her body shall return to its original form. Otherwise, she shall appear to carry to full-term._

_The obvious conundrum is what to do at the end of a gestational term. No witch has ever used the Graviditate Elixir for a full nine months' worth of deception. The author of this text can not advise to do so, for it is unknown what might pass after that time. It is only known that there is no child growing in the womb, and therefore the social consequences for the deceiving witch and any participating allies would undoubtedly be quite grave._

_It would be strongly advised to only use the Graviditate Elixir for a few months, then combine with the 'Praeceps Cruentamque' incantation to simulate a miscarriage._

_And, as always, Madam Brummagem reminds her readers that these deceptions are cruel and Dark, and none should be attempted in the first place.'_

Severus flicked his eyes to the following page, reading over the instructions for the potion. When he realized that it would take a solid week to brew, he decided to get to work at once. If Hermione decided against it, he would simply Vanish the work he'd already done, but time was precious to them now.

* * *

The first snowfall was delicate and light, the snowflakes looking like tiny pieces of lace as they cascaded down from the heavens. Hermione stood near an arched opening in the cloisters and stared down into the glen below, watching the snowflakes tumble and whirl through sky in their graceful ballet. She breathed the cold, sharp air through her nostrils and relished the cutting bite of winter.

"Hello, Hermione."

She turned to see Luna Lovegood beside her, the girl's blonde tresses blowing smoothly behind her in the breeze. Luna flashed her serene little smile.

"Hi, Luna." Hermione curled up her lips, grateful for the friendly presence of a peer, and asked, "How are you doing?"

Luna ignored the pleasantry and prompted softly, "Have you seen this morning's edition of the  _Daily Prophet_ , Hermione?"

There was a note of concern then in Luna's voice, and she spoke so softly that she was almost whispering. Hermione turned to face her more squarely and frowned. Ever since Voldemort's followers had taken over the Ministry of Magic, the  _Prophet_  had existed solely as a tool for Death Eater propaganda. Hermione had only ever seen Luna reading her father's paper,  _The Quibbler_ , so if she was asking Hermione about the  _Daily Prophet_ , it must be important. Hermione shook her head and asked, "What's wrong, Luna?"

Luna kept up her preternaturally calm smile, though her eyes went a bit bleak, and she reached inside her school bag for a folded copy of the newspaper. She handed it to Hermione carefully, and Hermione unfurled it and immediately gasped when she read the headline.

HOGWARTS BABY WATCH!

Beneath the loud and obnoxious print were two moving photographs - one of Severus, taken a few years previously, and one of Hermione taken with Harry (they'd conveniently cropped Harry out of the photo). The  _Prophet_ editors had placed the two separate photographs side-by-side since they had no photo of Hermione and Severus together. The smaller sub-headline read,

' _Wizarding World awaits pregnancy news from hunky Hogwarts headmaster and his youthful wife!'_

Feeling abruptly nauseated from her abject humiliation, Hermione read on with a great deal of horror. Unsurprisingly, the byline indicated the article was by Rita Skeeter.

' _Unconventionally handsome Hogwarts Headmaster Severus Snape has recently married the young and beautiful Hermione Granger. This May-December marriage, while perhaps unexpected and idiosyncratic, does also seem quite romantic to this reporter! But it's not the dress Miss Granger wore while wedding Master Snape that has the tongues of the Wizarding World wagging - it's when she's going to announce her pregnancy!_

_Yes, the eyes and ears of Wizarding Britain are upon Hogwarts Castle, waiting for word that the Snapes have done their duty in increasing the Two Magical Parent Population. The Ministry of Magic and the Daily Prophet would like to extend their most heartfelt congratulations to the married couple and wish them the best of luck in being a shining example of the Two Magical Parent Population Act!_

_This reporter can assure her readers that she waits with bated breath for news of a Hogwarts Baby!'_

Hermione felt her jaw drop open and her eyebrows fly up as she read the shameful article. She felt her stomach flop and then plummet, and she wanted to be sick. She crumpled the newspaper in her fist, shaking her head fiercely.

"How… that terrible woman!" she hissed at Luna, feeling her eyes burn. "'Hogwarts baby'? I'm not a damned broodmare! I'm a human!"

"I know, Hermione!" Luna assured her, putting her hand gently on Hermione's shoulder and nodding. "And your husband knows that, too. I'm quite certain Professor Snape did not marry you in order to make Rita Skeeter happy."

Hermione shook her head no. Luna sighed and continued in a low murmur,

"Even so, it might be best… it might be the most  _safe_  thing to do, don't you think… to give them what they want? Bread and circuses and all of that?" She smiled and shrugged.

"So, I'm meant to conceive and birth and raise a child, just to assuage the lust of the public - more specifically, of Rita Skeeter?" Hermione sneered, and Luna patiently shook her head.

"No! Of course not. You're supposed to conceive and birth and raise a child because you married man you love, and you will be a wonderful mother. The fact that a pregnancy will save all of your lives is just an added bonus - the true gift is being a family."

She patted Hermione's shoulder and stepped away, smiling gently over her shoulder. As Hermione watched her go, she trembled with confusion, and knew she needed to find Severus immediately.

* * *

She appeared a few feet away from him with a small  _pop_ , holding his pocket-watch in her hand, and Severus looked up from the bubbling cauldron over which he stood to see her tucking the  _Oraverit_  back into her robes.

"Hello," he greeted her softly, his hand continuing to carefully stir the potion. He had made a small work station in his dungeon office, and, having assembled all the necessary ingredients, had begun work on the Graviditate Elixir _._

He had removed his black frock coat and tossed it over the back of his desk chair and stood in his white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top few buttons undone, and he'd pulled his hair back into a small tie so none fell into the cauldron. He wanted to ensure everything was just so with this potion, and he worked best under these conditions. Hermione stared at him for a long beat, unused to seeing him dressed like this, and he pinched his lips tightly at her, his hand still moving his stirring-stick in a fluid circle.

"When you've quite finished ogling, Ms. Granger, would you care to inform me why you've Apparated into my office when I happen to know you're meant to be in Advanced Arithmancy lessons?"

"Erm…" Hermione lowered her eyes and blinked a few times. Finally she said, "Did you see this morning's  _Prophet_?"

Severus scowled. He made a habit of avoiding the newspaper of late; it was frequently filled with either hateful bile or ridiculous drivel. "No," he said shortly. "I did not. Why?" He looked down and watched as the potion turned bright blue, and he tossed in some chopped rose petals and stirred more vigorously before letting the mixture sit. Setting down the stirring stick, he glanced up at Hermione and cocked an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest.

Hermione pulled a crumpled copy of the  _Daily Prophet_ from her robes and held it out to Severus gingerly. He smoothed it on the table and read, ' _HOGWARTS BABY WATCH!'_

There was a lurid article following the terrible headline, and Severus felt a flutter of awful anxiety rush through him. Obviously, he thought, the Dark Lord had indirectly instructed someone at the  _Prophet_  to run this story.

It wasn't just that he and Hermione were to be shining beacons of Half-Blood procreation, Severus realized. This was the Dark Lord's way of discerning whether or not he could truly trust Severus - whether Severus followed orders. The article was a clear way of showing Severus that the Dark Lord was not fooling around about the issue. Either he and Hermione produce a visible, public pregnancy, or their marriage would be outed as a sham and a deception, and Severus' credibility would be destroyed in the world of the Death Eaters. The article was also an effective means by Voldemort of humiliation, one of his favorite tactics of exerting power over his followers.

Severus swallowed heavily and cleared his throat. He had not discussed with Hermione what Voldemort had said to him at the last meeting, because he'd not had time over the past two days to come up with an adequate solution. Only in the past few hours had he discovered the potion as an option in  _Darkest Deceptions And Magical Forgeries,_  and Hermione had been in lessons all day. He'd meant to discuss it this evening after dinner, of course.

"Well," he said delicately, folding up the newspaper and Vanishing it with neither wand nor incantation, "this issue is actually why I'm standing over a cauldron instead of working up in the Headmaster's Tower today, Hermione."

"Oh?" Hermione shifted her weight and pinched her lips. Her voice was rather sour, and Severus could scarcely blame her. She probably felt as though her worth were being measured by many people in her ability to either be or appear pregnant. It was unjust and ridiculous for such a young woman to feel that way, Severus thought bitterly.

"Indeed," he said, his voice smooth. He jerked his head a bit toward the cauldron and said, "This potion is called Graviditate Elixir. It is taken daily to simulate pregnancy - you would have outward, visible manifestations of a pregnancy. But, of course, you would not actually be pregnant. It would be a false pregnancy."

"And what about at the end of nine months, with nothing to show for it?" Hermione asked skeptically.

Severus frowned and licked his lips carefully. "Yes, well… the author of the book stated that there was some risk about that. No one has ever taken it for a full nine months… one would seek to cease use before then -"

"What if one could not?" Hermione cocked her eyebrows up. "What if a certain Dark wizard demanded proof of a miscarriage? I appreciate your research and work, Severus. Really, I do. But I don't think you've thought this all the way through. This level of deception could get us both killed. I have a distended belly, a swollen face, et cetera… and nothing at  _all_  to show for it at the end of nine months? You don't suspect that that degree of ongoing deception, if discovered, would result in hideous torture of murder of both you and me?"

She was right, of course. She was so right it hurt Severus' chest to think about it. He glared down at the cauldron of partially-brewed potion and dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. "I do not have a better solution," he admitted quietly. "I have pondered it for two days and searched through several books…"

Hermione stepped up to stand in front of him, and she reached her hand up to touch his cheek with shaking fingertips. "Don't you think, after all that reading," she began, "that the only real option is to actually  _try_?"

Severus shook his head firmly. "I will not do that to you."

"So you would instead have me engage in an ongoing lie so deep and duplicitous that I would be killed for it?" Hermione asked. She nodded and raised her eyebrows. "They would kill me if they found out. You know they would."

Severus shook his head, shutting his eyes against the reality facing him. "You are too young for this. You have a life to live," he insisted, but Hermione interrupted him.

"Are we existing in the same world at present, you and I?" she demanded. "What sort of life am I meant to live? You are my life." She raised herself up onto her toes and pressed her lips gently against his. "Please give me the antidote to the  _Elixir Infecundum._ You said you had it."

Severus squared his jaw and gritted his teeth. Yes, he possessed a bottle of the antidote to the contraceptive - the only bottle he knew to exist. Its effects would be immediate. He could give it to her, take her through to door to their private chambers, and start 'trying' straight away.

But what sort of a scoundrel would he have to be to do that? She was still in school. She'd not even taken her N.E.W.T.s yet. She'd not had a chance to travel the world, to have a professional life, to be her own adult person without the burden of motherhood. How could he shackle her with a child - deliberately?

Then again, what if she was right? What if this was the only way to keep them alive and together? Voldemort had vowed that if Severus failed to produce evidence of Hermione's pregnancy, she would be cast aside and quickly replaced. The  _Daily Prophet_  was deliberately stirring up public interest in their private lives, and Hermione was almost certainly correct that the deceptive potion would have a terrible outcome. Severus' mind swirled with a vision of a fruitless lie ending in torture and death when discovered.

Could he be a father? He did not  _want_  to be a father - at least, not under the present circumstances. Where on Earth would an infant live at Hogwarts, anyway? He'd have to put Hermione and a child up in a house in Hogsmeade, at the very least. And the thought of a wailing, then crawling, then complaining child made his hair stand on end unpleasantly. There may well be positive aspects to fatherhood, but Severus had never personally been on the receiving end of any of them, so they were difficult to imagine.

No, he did not particularly desire parenthood. Not currently. But it seemed there was little choice but to at least  _try_ … if for no other reason than to keep Hermione alive and with him. He felt ill as he picked his wand up off the desk and pointed it at his private stores.

" _Accio_   _Elixir Infecundum_  Antidote."

* * *

He'd given her the antidote and told her to go back to lessons, that it would look poorly upon the both of them for her to have disappeared in the middle of the day. The antidote did not make Hermione feel any differently, but she was left with the mingled taste of chalk and sugar and chili pepper in her mouth for the rest of the day.

At dinner, there were a fair number of eyes trained upon her as students engaged in amused conversations with one another about that morning's  _Daily Prophet._  Hermione sat red-faced for the entire meal and tried to ignore all of them, until finally a small gaggle of Slytherin girls came striding up to the Gryffindor table.

"Hello, Granger," sneered Pansy Parkinson, crossing her arms over her chest and flicking her bobbed hair from her face. She cocked her face to the side and smirked. "Any news for us? We're all waiting with  _bated breath_ , you know."

"Are you?" Hermione asked distantly, flicking through the Herbology book passage she was reading about the use of sea kelp in healing pastes.

"I've heard that the Headmaster only married you in order to demonstrate the Two Magical Parent Population Act," said Daphne Greengrass snidely, from where she stood behind Pansy and Millicent Bulstrode, and Hermione snapped her eyes up with a sharp glare. Daphne continued, "I heard that bit… isn't going well."

"Well, Daphne, I've  _no_  idea who would have told you that," Hermione said, feeling her cheeks grow warm. "I suggest you shove -"

She was about to snap a very rude remark to all of the Slytherin girls, but then she heard the liquid voice of her husband say,

"I must admit, I never thought I'd see this group socializing. An unlikely cohort."

Hermione snapped her head around to see Severus gliding smoothly down the row between the tables, having come down from the Staff Table when he sensed trouble. Pansy Parkinson lowered her arms from her chest and stammered,

"We… we were just congratulating, erm… asking…"

"I believe the House-Elves have just served dessert," Severus noted, raising his eyebrows, "if you ladies will find your way back to the Slytherin table."

"Yes, Headmaster," Daphne nodded briskly, and the girls turned on their heels and strode quickly away from Hermione.

"I can stand up for myself," Hermione hissed under her breath at him when they'd gone, looking down at her book.

"Of course you can," he affirmed quietly. "That doesn't mean I don't enjoy seeing them flee in terror."

Hermione chuckled a little then, unable to help herself. She flicked her eyes to the side and watched as Severus made his way back up to the Staff Table, his black robe billowing authoritatively behind him.

A half hour later, she made her way to the library to retrieve a stack of books she needed for an Astronomy essay, and then she finally retired to the dungeons for the night. She was weary and sick of ignoring whispers and stares. Feeling rather like a zoo animal, she was relieved when she finally entered the deserted Potions corridor and was free of the eyes and voices of the rest of the castle.

When she opened the door to the rooms she shared with Severus, she could hear the soft plinking of piano music coming from his old record player.

"Evening," she greeted him, closing the door softly behind her. He was already in for the night, sitting in a wingback chair in his dark green cotton robe. It bared much of his chest, and Hermione had to cast away a flutter of want in her throat at the sight of his skin in the flickering firelight. He had a half-empty glass of Elf-made wine in his hand, and was staring into the fireplace. When she came in, he flicked his black eyes over to her and smiled a bit sadly.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked as she stepped into the room, and she knew he was referring to the contraceptive antidote she'd taken earlier. She nodded as she stripped off her school robes and jumper and kicked off her shoes and knee-high socks.

"No side effects," she confirmed, and Severus nodded his approval. He took a sip of his wine thoughtfully. Hermione felt a little unnerved at the quiet, contemplative mood he seemed to be in. He was peaceful and collected, almost as though he'd taken a - "Calming draught," Hermione intoned under her breath, raising an eyebrow questioningly at Severus. He smirked and nodded.

"I was quite anxious, I admit," he said, taking another little sip of wine. "I am both intimidated and discouraged by the idea of actively attempting procreation. I thought perhaps a Calming draught might at least ease the process. There's some for you, should you require it."

He gestured loosely to the little table beside him, where there was another glass of wine and a small clear vial. Hermione frowned deeply.

"You don't have to ply me with alcohol and sedative potions in order to bed me, Severus," she insisted, unbuttoning her white blouse nimbly as she padded barefoot toward him. "You're my husband. I'm your wife. This is what is supposed to happen."

"Hmph," Severus said gruffly, draining the last of his wine. He set down his empty glass upon the little table and put his slender hands on the arms of the chair, narrowing his dark eyes at Hermione. "Why don't you come show me  _precisely_ what is supposed to happen?"

Hermione smirked a little, undoing the final button of her shirt as she stood before the chair. She peeled the shirt from her torso and tossed it aside, and then moved her hands to her waist, flicking open the clasp on her skirt and letting it fall to the floor before kicking it away. She stood before Severus in her bra and knickers and dragged her fingertips lightly around her form - down her neck, over her breasts and stomach and hips, under the waistband of her knickers. She pulled them down and then unclasped her bra, revealing her milky flesh to him.

Suddenly Severus' hands reached up from the arms of the chair and he growled from the back of his throat. He grabbed roughly onto Hermione's waist and yanked her down so that she was straddling him, one thigh on each side of him. He pulled her down and ground her against him, and she felt his hardness beneath her and moaned helplessly.

"What is supposed to happen, little wife?" Severus demanded, his onyx eyes piercing hers as his bulge pushed over and over against her increasingly drenched entrance. Hermione closed her eyes and listened to how his breath came hard and fast through his nostrils, felt how his hands held her waist with a powerful grip, and she shuddered. Her own hands reached down between them and pulled desperately at his boxer-briefs, freeing his stiff cock.

She shifted her hips, up and forward, until she felt his tip press against her. She hissed as she sank onto him, and she buried her face into the crook of his neck.

She rocked against him, and it felt  _good;_ it felt right. The fluid movement of shared magic between them, the link forged by their vow of  _Magnum Verbum Honoris_ , was particularly palpable tonight. She felt every fleck of pleasure he felt, deep in her marrow. When she came, it was with a juddering sort of tremor in her very core, and it seemed to go on for a very long while. She sighed Severus' name against his shoulder and kissed his neck as she recovered, and then she felt him grow and stiffen inside of her. She felt his hands course up and down her ribcage and then tighten on her waist.

And then, very abruptly, she felt one of his hands fly to her front, to the spot just below her belly button.

" _Breviter steralitatem,_ " she heard Severus mumble frantically, and Hermione pulled back to stare at him in wide-eyed shock and horror. She felt a terrible mix of betrayal and pleasure wash over her as he wrenched his eyes shut and filled her in his climax. The pleasure was his, and the betrayal was hers. The conflicting emotions mixed to make Hermione feel profoundly confused, and as his seed leaked out of her, she felt dirty.

She climbed quickly off of him and recoiled away from the chair, pulling one of her hands up unconsciously to cover her breasts. Severus still had his eyes shut where he sat upon the chair, looking rather pathetic with his softening member, wet from both of them and glistening in the firelight, his hair a tousled mess, his chest heaving.

"Why did you do that?" Hermione demanded, her voice cracking with shame and anger. "Why did you cast the sterility charm? We agreed…  _you_  agreed that we would try!"

"I can't, Hermione." Severus shook his head resolutely. "It isn't the right thing for you, or for me, or for any child that would come of it."

Hermione felt her cheeks flush with fury, and she reached in her crumpled school robe for her wand. She pointed it at herself and exclaimed in a shaking voice, " _Finite incantatem!"_

She watched as Severus sighed, shook his head, and said patiently, "It doesn't work like that. I'm sorry, Hermione."

She growled, filled with rage she couldn't explain, and she turned on her heel to go into the bathroom. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to wash the feel and smell of his seed completely from her body.

* * *

**Conlisio Legilimens**

 

* * *

 

Severus stood in front of the armchair before the fire and cinched his dark grey dressing-gown around his waist. He sank into the chair and tapped his fingertips nervously on the small glass bottle in his hand. Staring into the crackling flames, he listened to the shower running in the bathroom and wondered how long Hermione had been in there. A half hour, at least. Probably longer.

She must hate him now, he thought. She must hate him because he'd hastily cast a Sterility Charm upon her just before spilling himself inside of her. But what she did not realize was that he'd been absolutely terrified in the moment that his body had readied for climax. An awful thought had flown through his mind, a horrific vision: Hermione with a round belly, waddling through the Hogwarts corridors in student robes, everyone staring at her. It wouldn't matter whether there was a child in her womb or not. She deserved to enter and live young adulthood without the heavy cloak of motherhood upon her, and if that wasn't possible, then both she and he deserved to fight to the end. But it was in  _no one_ 's best interest, Severus thought, for that vision to come to fruition.

He stared down at the bottle in his hand and dragged the pad of his thumb over the cork. He squared his jaw and felt his eyes burn, wondering whether he'd made a terrible mistake in binding himself to Hermione with  _Magnum Verbum Honoris._ It was hardly that he did not love her enough. No. That wasn't it. It was that he loved her far too much, and his greatest fear was dying and leaving her behind with a splintered soul.

Severus now knew that Bellatrix Lestrange had a cup of some kind in her vault at Gringotts, and he strongly suspected that cup was a Horcrux. He also suspected Nagini to be one. There were probably more, and Severus knew that the Dark magic meant Voldemort could not die until all the Horcruxes were destroyed. The way Dumbledore had indicated that there was a 'strong connection' between Harry Potter and Voldemort was interesting, as well. Dumbledore had said that a piece of Voldemort was inside Potter, and that the boy would have to die in order for the Dark Lord to be defeated. Was it possible that Potter himself was a Horcrux, as well?

If those three Horcruxes needed destroying, Severus thought, and he and Hermione were among the only people with knowledge of them, they were unlikely to survive. At the very least, he figured,  _he_  was unlikely to survive a mission to destroy the Horcruxes. And since he'd selfishly bound himself to Hermione, if he died, she would soon follow.

The water stopped running in the shower, and there was a long silence that made Severus feel uneasy. At last there was a rather bright light as the door to the bathroom opened and Hermione emerged, her torso wrapped in a black towel and with patted-dry tendrils of hair falling in a mess around her face. She paused in the doorway of the bathroom and rested her hand against the doorjamb, sighing as she stared at Severus for a long moment.

"Will you come here, please?" he asked, his voice a quiet purr, and she did. Her feet padded upon the carpet with gentle footfalls, and she stopped when she stood directly in front of the armchair. Then, rather unexpectedly, she pulled at the towel until it fell from her body at revealed her naked form. It wasn't a sexual gesture; it was intimate. She moved to nestle her nude body atop him, curling onto his lap and lacing her arms around his neck.

Severus tensed a little, surprised by the way she'd silently meshed her naked body onto his. He felt a warmth pulsing through his veins -  _love_ , at its most private and visceral - and he could not tell if the feeling originated from her or him. He swallowed a lump in his throat and coughed delicately, wrapping his arms around her back and feeling the way her skin was still sticky and warm from the shower.

"Do you  _want_  a child?" he asked Hermione, and there was a frankness in his own voice that he hoped she could hear. "Can you see yourself, any time in the near future, wanting to conceive and carry, to birth and raise, a child, Hermione?"

She did not answer him for a very long moment, but he didn't repeat the question. Hermione's fingers played a little with the dusting of hair upon Severus' chest, and she finally hummed a small sigh against his collarbone.

"No," she murmured at last, and Severus felt a flood of relief wash over him. But then Hermione began to shake with sudden tears, and he pulled her more tightly against him. She was shaking her head onto him, her wet hair rubbing oddly at the day-old scruff on his chin. "No," she said again, over and over. "I know there's no good option, no good way around this mess, but… I am nowhere near ready…"

"Hermione," Severus said then, and he heard a sharp clip in his voice that he quickly tried to correct, "The Dark Lord has no possession over your body, and neither do I. You must decide… if you want this."

He pulled her back away from him a little and held up the bottle in his right hand to her. She frowned deeply when she read the label.

" _Elixir Infecundum_?" she asked incredulously. She took the bottle and chewed her lip. "You said you had no more antidote. That it takes five years to brew."

"That is so," Severus nodded, pinching his lips. "But you will still be young in five years' time, Hermione. If all of this is over, and we are still alive, then perhaps at that time it will be safe for you to be a mother. I don't think it is now. I think it best that you are safe…"

He expected her to put up more of an argument. He expected her to bicker with him about the permanency of the potion, about how he had no antidote in case they should get fickle again and change their minds once more before five years were up. He expected her to rail on about how he'd gone against their joint decision and had cast a Sterility Charm upon her without asking.

He was thoroughly unprepared to see her pluck out the little cork and tip the bottle back into her mouth.

He was even less prepared for the next moment, when his left arm started burning with a searing, uncomfortable heat. Hermione looked down at her own arm in alarm, for she could feel some of Severus' pain. She brushed her fingertips over her own forearm, over the phantom Dark Mark that was paining her there, and she raised her chestnut eyes to Severus. She dropped the empty bottle of  _Elixir Infecundum_  and put her hands upon each of his cheeks.

"Please come back to me quickly," she said softly. "I do not like to sleep without you."

* * *

The front door of Malfoy Manor was already opening as Severus approached it. In the threshold stood Bellatrix Lestrange, looking ornery and troubled, and Severus felt ill at the sight of her.

"Hurry up, hurry up!" Bellatrix huffed, and Severus frowned, for he'd come straight away upon feeling the burn on his arm. "They're upstairs."

"Is it worth my time to inquire of you  _who_  is upstairs, Bella, or shall I simply make haste to see for myself?" Severus drawled. Bellatrix did not give him a snippy response as she was wont to do. The way she simply shut the door behind Severus and started up the stone stairs made him feel abruptly uneasy.

He stalked into the dining room and threw up his mental defenses, just as he did every time he came here. When he entered the dining room, Aberforth Dumbledore was at the table, his head resting upon his hands as though he were in a drunken stupor. The old wizard's white-and-grey hair and beard looked dirty and ragged, as if he'd been too long deprived a bath. Severus had obviously heard from Hogsmeade that the proprietor of the Hog's Head had vanished, though no one was willing to speak aloud their suspicions of where Aberforth Dumbledore had gone.

Voldemort was standing up beside the fireplace, and Nagini was curled at his feet. Severus quickly realized that this was to be a fairly private meeting when the Dark Lord said in a low his, "Leave us, Bellatrix."

Bellatrix nodded but looked reluctant as she shut the dining room door behind herself. Severus felt a silent shudder in the space as it was warded by the Dark Lord, and it suddenly seemed as though the walls were closing in a bit.

Aberforth Dumbledore looked up from the table toward Severus, who squared his jaw and gave the old man an icy glare. Aberforth chuckled, low and under his breath, and whispered dryly, "You're the one I kicked out all those years ago… when you heard the Prophecy. You only heard part. Too bad. I should have let you stay for the whole thing, I suppose."

"We have been interrogating him for weeks," Voldemort said in a slick murmur to Severus, "but the only information I can get on Potter are little flashes… reflections in a broken mirror. We have had the Hog's Head searched. We have searched  _him_. There is no broken mirror. Something with a Protean Charm? I'd assume the boy has the other piece. I saw the House-Elf in his head. He is the one who sent the Elf here to fetch Ginevra Weasley."

"If he serves no further purpose, My Lord," Severus began carefully, "May I ask why it is you are keeping him alive?"

Voldemort looked a bit uncomfortable as he admitted, "Yours are the only other Legilimency skills I trust, Severus. Before I kill him… take a look, will you? Anything useful would be… both appreciated and rewarded."

"Of course, My Lord." Severus cleared his throat and prepared to enter Aberforth Dumbledore's mind. Then, rather unexpectedly, Aberforth looked straight at Severus and said,

"He had you get that book -  _Ende of Deth -_  for the girl. I saw you carrying it out of the bookshop. I know why. It's the wand, the old wand from the story. It's true, you know; Albus had it for ages. It must be mastered -"

Severus felt a shaking sort of anxiety ripple through him as Aberforth spoke. He was revealing too much; he was not saying enough. Was this about the Elder Wand from the Tale of the Three Brothers? And, if it was,  _why_  would Aberforth Dumbledore talk about it in front of Voldemort? Severus opened his mouth, and, in a trembling voice, said, " _Legilimens!"_

At precisely the same moment, he heard the hoarse, serpentine voice of the Dark Lord cry out, " _Legilimens!"_

An odd thing happened then, a thing that Severus would later realize was the phenomenon called  _Conlisio Legilimens._  The extremely rare occurrence happened when two people practicing Legilimency entered a mind at exactly the same time. Instead of reading the mind of the intended subject, those locked in  _Conlisio Legilimens_ entered the minds of one another, and were likely to have difficulty pulling away.

This was precisely what happened. Severus did not see Aberforth Dumbledore's thoughts. Instead, he saw a swirling collision of his own memories tangled with the horrifying thoughts of Lord Voldemort.

_**The crumpled corpse of a plump old witch, lying upon the ground of an opulent sitting-room. A pale hand reaching down and plucking up a golden cup with a badger upon the sides.** _

_Severus, pleading with Dumbledore to save Lily's life once he'd realized the Prophecy was about her son. Dumbledore asking Severus what he would do to save Lily._

" _Anything," Severus said, in that moment defecting from the Death Eaters and agreeing to spy for Dumbledore._

_**The wand-maker Garrick Ollivander, in the dank corner of a dungeon, being tortured and asked again and again about a wand. A powerful wand, one that could conquer all enemies. Ollivander cowering in fear as curse after curse wracked his old frame.** _

_The first time Severus had given Hermione the Elixir Infecundum. Watching her tip it back and feeling relief flush straight through to his bones. Saying reassuringly, 'I'll fetch you a nightgown.'_

_**The Grey Lady of Hogwarts, explaining in great detail where her mother's diadem was located. The Albanian forest. Diadem. Forest.** _

_Severus in the armchair, with Hermione rocking back and forth atop him. His hand flying to her abdomen. Whispering, 'Breviter Steralitatem.'_

Severus suddenly managed to yank himself out of Voldemort's mind and thought very quickly. He knew that the Dark Lord had just spent the last frenzied minute trying to wrench himself from the Legilimency lock, as well. Severus had only a split second, he knew, to escape.

The quick flash of memories had been devastating for the both of them. They were both vulnerable now. Severus had seen critical and confidential information from Voldemort's mind about Horcruxes, about the Elder Wand. And Voldemort had seen that Severus had been spying for Dumbledore, and that he had been disobedient with Hermione. His lack of loyalty had been made abundantly clear.

There was a Killing Curse headed straight for him, Severus knew. He had to act  _now_.

So he thrust his hand down his collar and snatched at the iron pendant there. He clutched it in his fist and said, " _Oraverit!'_

And then he was gone.

* * *

Hermione had managed to yank a comb through her messy hair and had pulled it into a low braid down her back. She'd donned a simple white tank top and an old pair of red flannel pyjama pants, and had arranged herself under the blankets of the bed.

Usually these meetings meant Severus was gone a few hours. It was already late enough tonight that Hermione thought she ought to go ahead and sleep, knowing he'd wake her up a bit when he settled into bed later. But something was niggling at her, keeping her wide awake and antsy. It was a sort of anxiety that wasn't hers. Something was wrong.

He wasn't in pain. She would have felt it if he was. But just in the past two minutes or so, she'd felt a quick flush of terrible fear and unease come over her, and she knew that whatever was happening with Severus, it wasn't good.

So she climbed back out of bed and paced a bit upon the floor, trying to slow the way her heart had begun pounding in her chest. His anxiety was a bit overwhelming, and now Hermione was feeling some of her own, and it melded with his. It was all becoming too much, and she quickly wondered whether she might dissolve into a panic attack.

_Crack!_

He startled her by appearing beside her with a louder-than-usual noise. Severus did not use his  _Oraverit_  as a matter of practice, and Hermione was shocked to see him Apparate straight into their living space. She put her fingers to her lips and whispered,

"What's happened?"

His face was white as a sheet as he wordlessly began dashing about the room. "Where is your bag - the one you Expanded? Get it. Get it now." Hermione felt her breath hitch in her chest, felt her feet frozen to the ground for a split second. Then Severus flashed his eyes back to her as he flung open the wardrobe. He snapped again, "Hermione! Get your bag. We have to leave, you understand?  _Now_."

She did not understand. She had no idea what had happened, though of course she was certain he would explain. Obviously, there was no time now. Hermione nodded and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. She managed to stumble over to her trunk and opened the lid, rummaging about until she pulled out the small purple bag. Inside it, she still had a good amount of emergency supplies - Dittany and other medical essentials, non-perishable food items, and some clothes. She began hurriedly putting everything she could stuff from her trunk into the bag, and looked up when she saw Severus' dragon-hide boots beside her.

He was holding out her warm winter peacoat, a hat, and a pair of slip-on trainers. Hermione stood and wordlessly donned the shoes and warm goods before stuffing her purple bag into her coat pocket. She dashed over to the bedside table and snatched her wand, tucking it away before asking Severus in a tentative voice,

"Where are we going?"

"Not certain yet," Severus admitted. "Come with me."

He began walking quickly out of their chambers, not bothering to look back. Once again, Hermione was struck by his urgency. He'd arrived perhaps sixty seconds previously, and already they were running out the door into his office. She followed Severus through the doorway and nearly ran into him when he paused for a brief moment to place strong Disillusionment Charms on both of them. She heard a small  _clang_  on the stone floor of the office and frowned when she realized Severus had yanked off the heavy wedding band he wore upon his left ring finger.

"I have no idea what that thing can do," he said gravely, "but if there's any chance it can track us… well, in any case, it's staying here. We're going out to the Apparition Point. We're going to run -  _run_  - you understand me? When we get there, grab hold of me and we'll do Side-Along Apparition."

Hermione felt queasy. What on Earth had happened to so quickly endanger their lives? Had someone else died, as well? Was Harry alive? Ginny? Neville? Luna? What had come to pass this night?

As they sprinted up the staircases from the dungeons, Hermione brushed fearful tears from her eyes and tried to steel herself. She and Severus finally made it up to the main level of the castle and passed by the heavy wooden doors of the Great Hall. She knew their steps were clattering loudly in the corridors, and she was grateful it was the middle of the night and that the castle was deserted.

She followed Severus' mostly-invisible form as he flung open the doors that led outside to the main entrance of the school, and they pattered through the icy night over the cobblestones. Then down over the path they trotted until Hermione's chest ached and burned and her breath was stinging through her nostrils.

Finally, they reached the Apparition Point, and Hermione slowed her steps. She heard Severus breathlessly murmur, "Take… take my hand, Hermione."

She turned back toward the castle for the briefest of moments, staring at its black silhouette in the still night air. This was the second time she'd left Hogwarts under duress. She did not think she'd be lucky enough to see it again. This was probably goodbye to the school. She tried to sear the image of the place into her head, the school where she'd grown from a child to a woman.

Then she felt Severus' hand roughly clasp over hers and squeeze tightly, and she was suddenly pinching and whirling as they Disapparated together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Blaenavon**

* * *

 

_CRACK!_

Hermione landed upon her knees with such a resounding crash that she cried out in pain. Wherever she'd landed, it was cold and wet, and the moment she tumbled to the ground, she was soaked. Stones upon the earth tore at her knees as she steadied herself, and when she planted her palms upon the ground for balance, she felt the spongy give of rain-soaked soil.

"Here," she heard Severus say from above her, and she looked up to see his hand held out to help her up. She took it and frowned as she rose, her knees cracking in protest. She felt frigid rain whipping her face in the darkness, and she squinted and looked about, trying to make sense of her surroundings.

There was dead grass around her feet, tall and wild and reaching almost to her knees. They were on some sort of barren, uneven surface, and Hermione looked out into the rainy night to see that there were electric lights down below her in what seemed to be a valley. They were on a hill, then.

"Where are we?" she asked Severus.

"Blaenavon, Wales," he answered. "Well, more specifically, we are on the mountain called Blorenge, which overlooks Blaenavon."

Hermione furrowed her brows and pressed, "And why have we landed upon a mountain in rural Wales?"

She knew the obvious answer to that question, of course. This place was secluded and far away from Hogwarts. Far away from Voldemort. But there had to be a specific reason Severus had chosen this place. Beside her, Severus cleared his throat and said in a strange voice,

"This is where my father was born and raised. He married my mother here, and they moved to Cokeworth for work some time shortly before I was born… when he was made redundant at the coal mine here in Blaenavon. I have memories of coming here as a child and visiting my extended Muggle family."

"Oh." Hermione was not certain what she was meant to say to that explanation. Severus had made it clear that his father, Tobias Snape, had been a terrible, abusive beast of a father. Why Severus would deliberately choose a place that reminded him of his father… that seemed odd, at best, to Hermione. But then she realized that they'd rushed away from Hogwarts in such a hurry that Severus had likely simply Disapparated them to the first place that popped into his head and was unlikely to attract wizarding attention. The home of his Muggle family… well, that made sense, Hermione supposed.

She stared down at herself and realized she was a sopping, shivering mess. Her red flannel pyjama pants were saturated straight through from rain. There was a small hole at her knee from a stone. Her slip-on trainers felt squishy from mud, and her hair beat fiercely at her face in the cold, wet night. Glancing up to Severus, she frowned a little to see that he was not as affected by the elements as she'd been. His usual dark attire seemed in order, from what she could tell in the dim light, although his hair fell around his face like a black mop.

"Are we to stay up here, on the top of the mountain?" Hermione asked delicately, shifting upon her feet. "Or are we going down to the village?"

"This way," Severus said simply, and he set off walking down the gentle slope of the hill in the direction of the clustered electric lights. Hermione plodded carefully after him, following his path and trying desperately not to slip and slide in the muddy grass. She waded down the hill, her eyes trained on the wraith-like silhouette of Severus. He was moving smoothly, confidently, but Hermione could feel a boiling sense of fear in her bones that was very clearly his. She wondered why it was they'd had to leave Hogwarts so briskly in the first place, though she was certain Severus would tell her when he could. At the moment, she could scarcely ask him; the wind was howling about them, churning the rain-soaked grass into a frenzy.

It seemed like an eternity of trudging down through muddy, rainy, frigid darkness. Finally, the lights of the village got closer and closer, and Hermione found herself following Severus down a narrow, winding road into the town itself. She pulled her knit hat from her head, for it was so saturated with rain now that it was making her head colder just by being there. She stuffed the hat into her left pocket and checked the right one to ensure that her magically Expanded bag was still there. It was, and Hermione was once again profoundly grateful that, months earlier, she'd thought to charm the bag and fill it with necessities.

She glanced up to see a painted street sign -  _Broad Street -_  as they entered an area illuminated by electric lighting. Severus paused in front of her and suddenly turned round, unclasping his flowing black cloak and folding it up into a sopping wad of material. He held it out to Hermione like a bundle.

"Put this in your bag, would you?" he asked her. "It's a bit too… conspicuous, I should think." Hermione nodded and pulled out her small bag, stuffing the cloak inside. Then she heard Severus say, "Set the bag on the ground."

Hermione frowned deeply up at him, but he just nodded once, very shortly, and she carefully placed the small purple bag on the drenched pavement. Severus pulled his wand out from his jacket and glanced about them before pointing it at the bag and murmuring, " _Engorgio - Facerevidulus - Colovaria…"_

The small purple bag grew larger, until it was about the size of a duffel bag. Then it shifted in shape and structure, becoming a more traditional suitcase with wheels and a handle. Finally, the material changed color to be a dark brown or blue - it was difficult to say in the night.

Severus took hold of the handle of the bag and raised his eyes to Hermione. She watched as rain dripped from his hair and fell before his face. He mumbled, "It would look odd to check in without a suitcase."

She was confused - check in? Then he turned around and started walking toward a white plaster building with dark timber trimmings. A small hand-painted sign out front read, ' _Rooms for let - £30 per night.'_

Hermione felt ill at ease as she followed Severus to the building. The place seemed a bit ramshackle at best and unsafe at worst. But she did not question Severus as they strode over the threshold of the door, whose red paint was flaking off into the rainy night. They walked into a cramped pub, whose walls were lined with old photographs and vestiges of the town's coal-mining past. Iron tools hung from lines on the ceiling, and only a few solitary figures were seated in the space, nursing pints. There was an old television perched in a corner, looking dusty and watched into oblivion. Its scratchy, black-and-white picture was transmitting a BBC replay of  _Coronation Street_.

Severus walked up to the bar, and Hermione followed, sidling up close to him. She felt less comfortable than ever when a man at a small table looked up drunkenly and ogled her for a long moment. Finally, the ancient barman appeared and said in a gruff voice to Severus,

"Fancy a pint, boyo? Nearly closing time, I'm afraid." The man's Welsh accent was thick, and the gritty timbre of his voice contrasted sharply with Severus' velvet response.

"Nothing to drink, thank you. I wonder if you might have a room available upstairs for the next few nights."

The barman narrowed his eyes and looked from Severus to Hermione and back again. "Bit young for you, isnit? Where to is your father, love?"

The old man looked back at Hermione, and though she wanted to growl with rage at his presumption, she had to guess he was merely speaking out of concern. She did, admittedly, look much younger than Severus. And they'd just wandered in out of the street, at the end of a cold, rainy night. The barman asking her where her father was could be the old man's way of ensuring she wasn't in a bad situation. So Hermione gently cleared her throat and said,

"Sir, if you please… my  _husband_  and I are awfully cold and tired. If there's no room here, we shall need to find other accommodations. Have you anything available?" She reached down to lace her right hand meaningfully with Severus', and he allowed the gesture. Hermione placed her left hand upon the bar nonchalantly, so that her ornate ring was obvious.

The barman flicked his eyes back and forth between them again. He still looked very suspicious, but at last he said, "Come with me, then."

They waited in silence for the barman to fetch a large ring of keys and emerge from behind the old wooden bar, and he gestured roughly for them to follow him up a narrow flight of stairs. Severus carried the bag, and Hermione leaned upon the wall for balance as they climbed up the winding way. At last they reached a small landing, and the old barman fiddled with his keys until he found the right one, then stuck it into the lock of an old oak door.

There was a brass  _2_  hanging crookedly upon the door. Hermione looked around the small corridor and saw that there was also a room  _1_  and a room  _3_ , but that was the extent of this place's accommodations. As the barman pushed open the room to the door, Severus smoothly handed the man several bills of Muggle money. Hermione wondered where he'd gotten it - she hoped he hadn't surreptitiously Transfigured it, that it wouldn't change back into twigs and pebbles in a few hours or something.

But as she watched the old barman counting the bills, they looked real enough. He held out his arm for Severus to enter the room, and he said sharply, "You've paid three nights, then. There's a shower and a toilet and a sink. I'll be at the bar should you require anything. Goodnight."

Hermione followed Severus into the room and shut the door behind her, murmuring half-hearted thanks to the barman as he disappeared. She pulled shut the old iron lock on the door and turned round to see that Severus had turned on the electric lights. The room was not as bad as she'd feared - it was merely outdated. There was a clunky dark wooden bed in the middle of the room, and a matching wardrobe. Upon the bed was a duvet in a fairly hideous floral pattern that was matched by the floor-length curtains. The carpet was a threadbare, awful shade of green. There was a cheap-looking painting on the wall of a flower, and a tiny television with antennae for reception. Hermione glanced into the miniscule bathroom, which had the barest of necessities.

Nonetheless, she realized with a jolt, this was better than anything she could have hoped for tonight. She felt exhausted and was shocked when the bedside table clock told her it was half past two. This night had seemed to go on forever, and not in a good way. First she'd made love to Severus, then argued with him about his hastily-cast Sterility Charm. Then Severus had been called away, and the very moment he'd come back, they'd fled Hogwarts and appeared on the mountain outside Blaenavon. They'd trekked down here and finally made their way into this small room.

It was all so much, so very exhausting, that Hermione sincerely thought she was going to fall asleep upon her feet. She was dirty and wet, but more than anything, she was profoundly tired. So she began stripping off her clothes and watched as Severus did the same thing after drawing the curtains firmly shut. He'd lit the stove for heat, and was now unbuttoning his frock coat with visibly shaking hands. Hermione asked quietly,

"When are you going to explain to me why it is that we are here? Why it is we left Hogwarts?"

Severus shook his frock coat off his shoulders and sighed heavily. He dragged his fingers through his hair and raised his black eyes to Hermione. "Are you familiar with the concept of  _Conlisio Legilimens_?"

Hermione paused for a moment, then folded up her white tank top, which had been soaked through from her sodden wool coat. She lay it upon the bed and shook her head at Severus. "No," she admitted. "I have not heard of it."

"It is a rare phenomenon," Severus pronounced matter-of-factly, as if he were teaching a lesson, "in which two people performing simultaneous Legilimency accidentally enter one another's minds."

Hermione felt a whirl of alarm shoot through her head at that thought.  _Two people… Legilimency… enter one another's minds…_

"You and -  _him_?" she asked incredulously, her voice a hoarse whisper as she slipped off her muddy, torn pyjama pants and folded them. She shivered in place in her knickers and crossed her arms over her chest. "How did that happen? What did you see? What did  _he_  see?"

Severus nodded, "That would be the most important question," he acknowledged. "I was meant to interrogate Aberforth Dumbledore to discover the whereabouts of Harry Potter. Just before I did, the old man starting talking about  _Ende Of Deth_ , about the Elder Wand. It was Albus Dumbledore's wand, like you thought." Hermione felt an odd flush of vindication at those words, at the idea that she'd been correct, but then her anxiety returned when Severus continued, "I immediately attempted to enter Aberforth's mind, and, at the same moment, the Dark Lord did, as well. We were immediately locked into  _Conlisio Legilimens._  Neither of us entered the mind of Aberforth Dumbledore. The Dark Lord entered my thoughts in an uncontrolled fashion, and, likewise, I saw his memories spinning before me."

Severus peeled off his white shirt, so soaked from the rain that it clung to his skin like a translucent film. He flung it down onto the duvet and shook his head in frustration as his hands moved to the waist of his trousers. "He saw me promise Albus Dumbledore to spy for the Order of the Phoenix. He saw me give you a contraceptive potion. He saw me sterilize you in the middle of…" His voice trailed off and Severus raked his fingers through his damp, clumped hair again.

Hermione nodded gravely. So, the reason Severus had used his  _Oraverit_  was to escape that room in Malfoy Manor. His lack of loyalty to Voldemort had been unearthed in one terrible, accidental collision of minds. But if Voldemort had been able to glean such memories from Severus, surely it must have worked the other way, as well? She pressed,

"Did you see anything of value from him?"

Severus nodded and dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. He put his hands square upon his hips and said, "The Horcruxes. There are more. There's a cup - it's got a badger; it must have something to do with Hufflepuff… a trophy of some kind? It's a small golden cup. He took it from an old woman, a dead old woman. It's in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringotts. Or, at least, it was. He may move it, of course, now that he knows I've seen it. I also saw him being told by the Grey Lady about her mother's diadem… that it was in a forest in Albania. I think that's one, as well. You already know how I feel about the snake, about -"

"Harry," Hermione finished. She nodded. Severus had never explicitly told her that he suspected Harry was a Horcrux. He  _had_ , however, told her that Dumbledore stated Harry needed to die in order for Voldemort to be vanquished, that there was a piece of Voldemort's soul inside of Harry. The explanation was simple and straightforward - Harry was a Horcrux. He must be. The very thought of that made Hermione's insides curl with terror. She stared at the ground and tried not to be sick.

Severus wasn't done. He said gently, "I saw him torturing Garrick Ollivander. Asking about the Elder Wand, though not by name. For some reason, the Dark Lord wants it. He heard Aberforth say Albus had it for years… now that I'm gone from Hogwarts, there's nothing stopping the Dark Lord from going and taking it from Dumbledore's tomb."

"But why does he need  _that_  wand?" Hermione wondered aloud. "What's the matter with  _his_  wand?"

Then she thought back to the night that the Order had tried to sneak Harry Potter from his aunt and uncle's house, the night there had been a dogfight in the skies. She remembered now that Severus said Voldemort's wand had cast a curse at Harry, but that Voldemort's wand had splintered as the curse backfired. There was something about Voldemort's wand that meant he couldn't kill Harry. He needed the Elder Wand to do so. But if Harry was a Horcrux… well, Hermione considered, Voldemort must not  _realize_  Harry was a Horcrux.

She frowned deeply, her head spinning madly as though she were drunk. She suddenly felt profoundly exhausted, and she found herself climbing into bed in just her knickers, desperate for sleep. She could not stay awake any longer, even though there was much to consider, much to do. She yawned widely, making no attempt to be graceful about it, and said in a sleepy voice,

"I need a few hours' rest before I can ponder any more of this. I feel as though I'm going to spontaneously collapse into sleep."

She slipped beneath the old, scratchy sheets and ignored the way the pillows were flat when she put her head upon them. Severus still stood beside the bed, stripping off his black trousers. Finally, he climbed into bed with her and nestled his body behind her, kissing the top of her head and snaking his arms around her protectively.

"The important thing for tonight is that you're safe," he asserted, his voice a firm purr in her ear. Hermione shivered at the comforting sound of his voice and burrowed herself more tightly back against him. Severus brushed his calloused fingertips down her shoulder blade and then kissed her skin. He murmured, "In the morning we begin our lives as fugitives and Destroyers of Horcruxes. For the next few hours, there is a great peace in my mind knowing that only I know where you are, here in this dingy rented room above a tired old pub."

Hermione smiled a little and tried to think of something clever to say back to him. But before she could say anything, her eyes had fluttered shut and there was only darkness and silence, and the warm respite of sleep.

* * *

When Severus finally emerged from the heavy weight of much-needed slumber, he rolled over to see that the clock read eleven-thirty. He glanced beside him and saw Hermione still curled up into a small ball, her hair a frizzled disaster as it hid her entire face. She was naked except for her knickers, but she'd yanked the duvet up around herself in the night. She was still fast asleep, her bare back rising and falling gently with her steady breaths.

Severus stared at her for a long while. Then his fingers drifted up to the iron pendant around his neck, his  _Oraverit_ , and he was suddenly very grateful he'd charmed the pendant and the pocket-watch. He'd thought the  _Oraverit_ would be stop-gaps, safe backup measures in case he and Hermione became separated. However, they'd now twice proved immensely useful - first when Hermione had used hers to come to Spinner's End the night of Dumbledore's Death, and now when Severus had used his to vanish to Hogwarts.

His dreams over the past few hours had been a troubled mash of concerns. New information about the Dark Lord confirmed that he would be difficult - if not impossible - to fully defeat. And, yet, Severus and Hermione were now in a position of unquestioned enmity with Voldemort. Severus was  _persona non grata_  to the Death Eaters now, and if either of them were seen, they were as good as dead. They might as well dash through the streets screaming the praises of Harry Potter.

Severus sighed heavily and looked down at Hermione, his eyes adjusting to the strips of light peeking around the curtains. He gently brushed some of her wild curls away from her face so that he could see her properly. She looked positively angelic in sleep, though he knew her to be a warrior. She could fight wandlessly, and had done so. She had the sharpest and most informed mind he'd ever encountered. And she was determined, and very brave. Severus swallowed a thick lump in his throat, feeling foolishly overcome with admiration for her.

If there was anyone with whom he was going to spend the end of his life, he thought… it was Hermione Granger.

He let his knuckles sweep over her cheek, his touch feathery and affectionate, and she sighed in her sleep and nuzzled her face against his hand. Severus felt a clutching ache in his chest, wanting very badly to know that he was going to be an old man watching Hermione happily drinking tea in an armchair on a summer's morning. He wanted to hear someone tell him that she would outlive him by decades, that she would die old and content with a few cats and a great many books.

But he'd heard the opposite. Septima Vector had told Severus directly that Hermione's life path was brief and inextricably linked with his own. The only hope they had to live on, Vector had said, had to do with a locket. Well, they'd destroyed the locket. Clearly, the path to salvation lay in destroying the Horcruxes - in destroying Voldemort.

Severus had found Dark Magic appealing for a great many reasons. He could never undo the searing of the Dark Mark onto his arm. He could never deny nor erase the fact that he'd really and truly been a wicked enough man to accept it. But now the path before him was straight and clear, and there was no room for error. He could destroy the Dark Lord and hope that Hermione would be that old woman with a few cats and a great many books… or he could fail, and she would die a young woman.

Severus' knuckles stilled on her cheek as he pondered the terrible thought of her demise, and then he used his own Occlumency skills to thrust the thought away, along with the burning that had come to his eyes.

When he stopped stroking Hermione's face, his hand began to tremble from anxiety, and he pulled away a bit, shutting his eyes. He smiled a little when he felt a warm squeeze around his hand, felt his fingers being pulled back to Hermione's cheek. He wondered how long she'd been awake, pretending to be asleep while he touched her. He cupped Hermione's jaw in his hand, and she sighed,

"Please don't stop. I'm at home with your hands on me."

He chuckled under his breath and opened his eyes, pushing himself up a bit until he was resting on his elbows. Hermione cracked her own eyes up at him.

"It's almost midday," Severus murmured softly, petting her hair. "We ought to rise, I suppose."

"Hmm." Hermione nodded against the thin pillow and huffed out a little breath of frustration as she groaned, "Those nightmares I had were all real, weren't they?"

"Probably," Severus nodded with a grim smirk, for there had been quite a bit of nightmare material provided to Hermione over the past year - or seven.

"Make them go away before we get out of bed," Hermione pleaded, her amber gaze wide and shining in the sunlight. "Get the terrible dreams out of my head, will you?"

"I don't know how," Severus admitted, shaking his head helplessly. But Hermione softly smiled up at him and put her palm upon his shoulder. Where her hand met his skin, there was a soft fizzle of energy, which Severus knew was from their bond of  _Magnum Verbum Honoris_. He felt a flush of want then, unexpectedly, and knew it was from her. "I don't know how to make your nightmares go away," he whispered again.

"Yes, you do," Hermione assured him, pulling gently upon his shoulder to urge him downward. He growled a little, from the back of his throat, and arranged himself carefully to hover atop her.

He looked down and saw her hair splayed around her like a halo, her face weary but beautiful in the dim light. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, kissed her cheekbones and her lips and the place just below her ear. She mewled softly in response, and her fingers flew up to nest in his own tangled hair. He kept kissing her, everywhere his lips could reach, until there was a static power in the air around her body. She arched her back and grasped at his scalp and murmured his name like a prayer.

Severus put his weight on his left elbow and used his right hand to unceremoniously yank her knickers down to her knees. He pulled down his own boxer-briefs enough to free his hardening cock, and he stroked himself a few times before placing his tip delicately at her welcoming entrance. He propped himself back up and hissed through clenched teeth as he pushed himself into her body, feeling the delightful smoothness of her. She was tight, and warm, and wet. Then Severus had to shut his eyes, for she was beautiful, too… so beautiful that looking at her, when combined with the sensations of his thrusting, was almost enough to push him over the edge. His breath seethed through his nostrils, deep and shaking.

"Look at me," he heard Hermione whisper, and he smirked at her as he opened his eyes reluctantly. They were the same words he'd spoken to her when he'd claimed her the first time. She smiled at him, her eyes gleaming with unspilled tears, and she ordered him gently, "Don't stop looking at me."

Severus obeyed, locking his black eyes onto hers as he rocked and ground his hips against her body. It was a moment or an eternity - he couldn't tell which - and then it was over. He was overcome with a fiery heat that echoed out from the marrow of his bones.

_That's her,_  he realized, feeling her clench around his member and hearing her whisper his name as her eyes melted into his gaze. Severus spilled himself then, unable to hold back, and he let out a choked little sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh.

When he pulled himself out of her and found the willpower to rise from the bed, the clock told him it was already past noon. His rumbling stomach confirmed this fact. Hermione seemed unwilling to move, at least for the moment, but she looked up at Severus with an air of serenity he'd not seen in her for some time - perhaps never.

"You see?" she said with a small grin. "It's all better now, just because it's you."

Severus smirked down at her and raked his fingers through his knotted hair. He flicked his eyes toward the tiny bathroom, knowing that right now he needed a shower more than anything in the world.

As he scrubbed at his skin with the bar of soap, washing away mud and rain and sex, he tried to make sure that he saw only her in his mind. He would be seeing plenty of terrible things in the weeks and months to come. Right now, all he wanted was to think of  _her_ , of how she'd seemed positively angelic as she'd whispered, " _Look at me._ "

Yes, Severus thought, rinsing the soap from his skin and watching it swirl down the drain. If there was anyone with whom he was going to spend the end of his life… it was Hermione Granger.

* * *

 

**Taboo**

 

* * *

 

"I feel utterly helpless." Hermione put down her teacup, brushing the pad of her thumb over the little chip on the rim. She picked up a chip out of the red plastic basket in front of her. Her fish and chips were too greasy; she couldn't enjoy them. She set the chip back down and sighed lightly, looking up at Severus. It was strange to see him dressed the way he was. He'd changed his normal attire into a fitted black jumper and dark-wash denims, and he looked like a proper Muggle as he chewed thoughtfully upon a bite of fried cod. He swallowed the food and nodded a bit, shifting in his chair.

Hermione watched as his black eyes flicked behind her, out through the window of the fish-and-chips shop into the streets of Blaenavon. Then he returned his gaze to her and said, "I admit, it is frustrating… to be privy to so much knowledge and be able to do so little about it."

"We know there's a cup. A diadem. The snake. And, almost certainly, Harry." Hermione counted out the known Horcruxes upon her fingers, scowling as she considered the impossibility of destroying those bits of Voldemort's soul in any sort of expeditious fashion. She looked into Severus' eyes and asked, "How on Earth are we meant to gain access to those things?"

"Well," Severus cocked an eyebrow and popped a chip into his mouth before he said softly, "perhaps the most important task right now is rather to track down others who might gain access more easily."

"Others?" Hermione repeated skeptically. "What others?"

"The Order," Severus suggested, and Hermione scoffed with disbelief.

"Molly Weasley  _watched_  you kill Remus Lupin," she whispered quietly. They'd surreptitiously Muffled their table so that the Muggles around them in the shop would ignore them, but she still felt compelled to lower her voice. She watched Severus' Adam's Apple bob as he gulped. Hermione continued, "Ron is  _dead_ , Severus. Mad-Eye, Dumbledore… Do you honestly think those left in the Order of the Phoenix are going to trust you or me at the moment?"

Severus cleared his throat and sipped at his own tea. As he set the cup down onto the saucer with a faint little  _clink_ , he murmured, "I think they will, when they realize they do not have a choice."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows. "Why wouldn't they have a choice, Severus?" She was nervous at the way his eyes flashed, for his Slytherin tendency toward ruthlessness contrasted with Hermione's personality at times. She cleared her throat a bit and asked more gently, "Why wouldn't they have a choice?"

"Because," he pronounced in a careful clip, "all they have of value at the moment is Harry Potter. And what I have - what  _we_ have - is the knowledge of the remaining Horcruxes, and the knowledge of the Elder Wand, which the Dark Lord will obtain and master in order to kill Potter… something, by the way, which  _must_  happen. Dumbledore said as much. The Dark Lord can not be defeated without Harry Potter's death. Do not think for a moment that the Order of the Phoenix values the boy's life above the destruction of the Dark Lord."

Hermione frowned deeply. She wanted, badly, to believe that her friend's life was worth more than a bargaining chip. But there had been countless martyrs in the Order of the Phoenix. They were a group willing to lay down their lives for the cause of the Light. That was their entire purpose - to surrender their individual aspirations for the good of humanity. If it were known among them that the  _only_  way for Voldemort to be defeated was for Harry Potter to die… well, then Harry Potter would probably die.

Hermione wanted to think differently, but she could not. Severus was right. If they managed to track down members of the Order and confront them with this truth, try to trade information for safety, then they would soon find themselves allied with the Order again.

"We need to go listen to the radio," Hermione said suddenly. Severus cocked an eyebrow.

"I do not see what that would accomplish," he scoffed lightly. "The Death Eaters have control of the Wizarding Wireless Network, just as they do the  _Prophet_  and the Ministry."

"Yes, well… we need to hear, first of all, what they're saying about you, and about me. The Headmaster of Hogwarts disappears from the school? You don't suppose that might get a mention, do you? Before we go gallivanting off to find the Order, don't you suppose it would do us well to hear what the official explanation is for our disappearance?"

Severus dragged his teeth over his bottom lip and gave a conciliatory nod. "You're right," he agreed finally. He pulled a worn leather wallet from his back pocket and plucked out a few notes, leaving them upon the table. He dabbed at his lips with a napkin and stood from his chair, holding his hand out to Hermione chivalrously. Hermione marveled again at the sight of him in dark denims and a jumper. It was an oddly attractive look, and yet did not fit his personality at all. She wanted, for some reason, to see him back in his usual robes. It would make her feel more at ease to see him dressed the way she was accustomed to seeing him.

The day was almost oppressively sunny, though quite chilly. Severus had charmed his cloak into a dark grey peacoat and had pulled a woolen hat over his raven hair, and Hermione stared at him as they stepped out into the streets.

"Something the matter?" Severus asked self-consciously, adjusting his hat. Hermione pulled her own coat more tightly around herself and shook her head.

"Erm, no…" she insisted, snaking her arm into his.  _He looks like a sailor_ , she considered with an internal chuckle. Severus' steps slowed and he glared down at her.

"A  _sailor_?" He raised his eyebrows, and Hermione felt her cheeks go warm as she realized he'd used Legilimency upon her. She pursed her lips and tried to look angry.

"I'm not used to seeing you in Muggle clothing is all!" she cried, yanking his arm and walking briskly down the street. "Let's go; we've got a radio broadcast to listen to."

"Indeed," Severus sniffed. He didn't say another word until they reached the old pub and made their way up the creaky old stairs to their rented room.

Inside, Hermione opened her bag and rifled around until she pulled out an old-fashioned transistor radio. She sat down upon the edge of the bed and turned the dial on the wizarding radio. It activated with a hiss and a squeal, and as Hermione slowly twisted the dial, the static shifted into a clear, low, droning voice.

"Yaxley," Severus identified, and Hermione felt a shiver go down her spine as she listened to the Death Eater speak.

" _... was assumed that Headmaster Snape and Ms. Granger would have returned by now if they had gone somewhere of their own volition. The Ministry of Magic has searched the private chambers of Headmaster Snape, as well as his office. It is believed that the Headmaster and his wife have been kidnapped and are being held hostage."_

" _And does the Ministry have any notion of who might be keeping Headmaster Snape and Ms. Granger for ransom? Hem-hem!"_ The terrible, shrill sound of Dolores Umbridge's' voice chimed in then, and Hermione scowled. She looked from the wireless up to Severus and back again as Yaxley replied smoothly,

" _In fact we do, Madam Umbridge. Many in the wizarding community are familiar with the joke shop in Diagon Alley operated by the Weasley twins, Fred and George. These two have been renowned for their prankster natures for years, as well as their enmity with Headmaster Snape. However, recently they have gone on the run and have escalated their spell and product inventions from mere pranks and jokes… it is believed that Fred and George Weasley intend to harvest magic from half-blood and pureblood wizards and sell it to Mudbloods."_

Hermione felt her lip curl up in disgust and disbelief. "That is the most preposterous, most ridiculous -" she began, but Severus shook his head firmly to cut her off. She pinched her lips and turned back to the wireless reluctantly. Dolores Umbridge was speaking again.

"... _a reward of six hundred galleons for the capture of Fred and George Weasley. If they are turned over, alive and well, to the Ministry of Magic, this reward shall be paid immediately. As for Headmaster Snape and Ms. Granger, we are also seeking to speak with them about their experiences in captivity and to ensure that they have been neither Confounded nor Imperiused. If they are discovered, please approach them with caution and alert the Ministry of Magic to their location surreptitiously and immediately. The reward for safely locating Headmaster Snape and Ms. Granger is one thousand galleons."_

" _Thank you, Madam Umbridge. This message will be repeated on the hour. And now, we turn things back over to Sonora Liteley for a bit of music…"_

Hermione yanked the dial on the wireless to the left until it clicked and the radio went silent. She flung her suitcase open and tossed the wireless inside, ignoring the rather ominous clanging as it tumbled down into the Expanded bag and banged around the contents. Hermione huffed up to Severus,

"They've gone mad! Framing Fred and George, of all people!"

Severus was calm -  _too_  calm, Hermione thought with anger - as he shrugged lightly where he stood and licked his bottom lip. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, "It's rather brilliant, actually. It wouldn't be difficult for the right people to believe that Fred and George Weasley had merely extrapolated their trickery… capitalizing on the chaos, if you will. And everyone knows they had a rocky relationship with me while they were students."

"Come now, Severus. 'Selling our magic to...'" Hermione could not bring herself to say the awful word -  _Mudbloods_  - so she just gulped and mumbled, "Muggle-borns?"

"Of course it's a preposterous notion, Hermione," Severus agreed. "But these are boys who sold Dungbombs, fireworks of all sorts, and every love potion imaginable. For the right audience, it would not be unimaginable that they would expand into an enterprise involving 'magic harvesting.' You must remember, Hermione, that the Ministry has been outputting propaganda on this issue for months now. Susceptible minds will have already succumbed."

Hermione felt angry tears burning in her eyes. "This is madness," she said again, shaking her head. "Fred and George will be killed. You and I will be caught. Everyone will be looking for us."

"This is merely another way for the Dark Lord to sow discord and create tumult in the wizarding world," Severus asserted. He began to slowly pace back and forth in front of the bed. "He's already eliminated Ronald Weasley, and Ginevra is off somewhere with Harry Potter. If he can get Fred and George, then he'll succeed in bullying the rest of the Order to find Harry Potter and hand him over to the Dark Lord himself."

"But that's the same goal  _you_  have," Hermione said. She shook her head in confusion. "You want Harry dead so that the Horcrux in him is destroyed!"

Severus frowned down at her as if she were a fool. "Yes," he admitted with a hiss, "but it must happen on  _my_  terms -  _our_  terms - so that we can obtain help from the Order in destroying the rest of the Horcruxes. Otherwise, you and I are still on our own."

"So how do we make sure that Fred and George aren't handed over, that you and I aren't found?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I should think that rather obvious," Severus said sharply. "We need to find the Order first. Kingsley, or Molly and Arthur Weasley. Nymphadora Tonks. Any of them, really. We have to find them first."

"The whole of wizarding Britain is looking for the Order now," Hermione reminded him impatiently, rising from the bed. "They're looking for Harry. For Ginny. For Fred and George. For you and me. Remember?"

Severus cocked his head at her. "No, I'd quite forgotten," he said snidely, and Hermione scowled at him. She was about to berate him for his rudeness when an odd look came over Severus' face. His eyes narrowed and flashed, as though he'd had an idea.

"What is it?" Hermione asked nervously.

"The Taboo," Severus said suddenly, and Hermione shook her head in confusion once more. Severus let out a quivering breath and put his arms down to his sides. He looked down to Hermione and said, "If we say his name, they'll come here - Snatchers. They won't know it's us. They'll just know  _someone_  has broken the Taboo."

"Well, how does that help us?" Hermione demanded, her voice growing a bit shrill.

"If we give them a day or two, they'll likely have tracked down someone in the Order. The Snatchers will have the prisoners with them, and if we break the Taboo, the prisoners as well the Snatchers will show up. We - well,  _I_  - kill the Snatchers immediately when they appear, and we've thus 'found' members of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Or, they appear and kill  _us_ , and they haven't got any other prisoners at all," Hermione suggested, her words fast and desperate. Severus sighed and nodded.

"That is a distinct and unfortunate possibility. A risk we shall have to take," he admitted. Hermione sighed shakily. Finally, she nodded. She could see no other way. How else were they to track down members of the Order? How else were they to begin destroying Horcruxes - to begin destroying  _him_?

She disliked the idea of murder as means to an end. She did not like to encourage Severus in committing acts of wickedness in order to achieve a good outcome. She feared for his soul, ultimately. But she knew that, right now, his plan was the best idea they had.

Neither Hermione nor Severus got very much sleep that night. They lay in the scratchy, lumpy bed, both of them lost in thought. Hermione finally asked Severus if he minded switching on the old television, and he did. They watched a scratchy episode of  _Parkinson_ , a show with which Severus was unfamiliar since it had premiered the year he went off to Hogwarts and he had rarely watched Muggle television since then. Hermione had to chuckle at that thought - Michael Parkinson had been an integral part of British Muggle life for decades, and the idea that Severus Snape didn't know who he was amused her a bit.

They made love slowly and deliberately, neither of them speaking what they were both thinking - that they might die soon enough and this might be the last time. They kissed and spoke softly to one another for a few hours, and eventually got a few hours of rest. When the morning came, they ate breakfast at the tea shop around the corner and wandered into the bookshop next door.

Hermione breathed in the scent of paper and ink and smiled to herself. She began to wander happily among the bookshelves, drawing her fingers along the spines. Severus followed behind her, his hands jammed into the pockets of his peacoat. Hermione's fingers settled upon an old copy of Dickens'  _Great Expectations,_ and she let out a happy little noise as she pulled it out from the shelf and began flipping through the pages.

"What is that one about?" Severus asked tentatively, seeming hesitant to reveal his ignorance to Muggle literature. Hermione smiled up at him and held out the book.

"It's a coming-of-age novel," she gushed, "by Charles Dickens. It's the story of Pip, a boy who grows up in an abusive home. He has a mysterious benefactor, and he is in love with Estella, who is being raised by the eccentric Miss Havisham. Pip tries to become a gentleman to impress Estella, but he builds up debt. Lots of other things happen… anyway, eventually Pip finds Estella again, but in the interim she's been abused by her now-dead husband. She forgives Pip and they are together at the end of the story."

She smiled again at Severus, but he frowned, a wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. He took the book from Hermione's hands and shut it rather loudly, pushing it back onto the bookshelf. Hermione pulled backward a step, her mouth opening in confusion. She was about to ask Severus what was the matter, but he snapped,

"What ridiculous drivel. If Estella was too shallow to accept Pip without his debts, then he shouldn't grovel for her at the end of the book."

Hermione let out a trembling breath, realizing the Dickens classic had hit a bit too close to home for Severus. She glanced quickly back to the bookshelf and saw a ragged copy of  _Notre-Dame De Paris_  by Victor Hugo. That wouldn't be an easy one to explain to him, either. She thought perhaps they should be done with Muggle literature in general for today, and she asked gently, "Fancy a look at the old coal mine up the road, then?"

* * *

By the time Severus and Hermione settled into stools in the old pub later that night, they were both in quite a state. Nerves had almost gotten the best of Hermione an hour earlier when she'd shrunken her bag back into a purse and stuffed it into her pocket. She'd almost Vanished it on accident, which would have been most unfortunate.

Now the two of them sat at the long wooden bar downstairs. They were the only patrons, for Severus had cast a Muggle-Repelling Charm upon the place. The 'regulars' and the barman would stay far away, unable or unwilling to approach the pub for reasons they would not be able to identify.

Severus had filled pint glasses for himself and Hermione with beer, though neither of them was calm enough to take a sip. There was an eerie quiet and stillness in the place as Severus finally asked Hermione,

"Have you got your wand out?"

She nodded, staring at her full pint with a squared jaw and a look of determined resolution. Severus could see her right hand gripping the handle of her wand, her knuckles white with tension. He leaned over to her and kissed her jaw lightly, whispering into her ear,

"All will be well. You are a terribly bright witch, Hermione… and I am not afraid. Go ahead. Whenever you are ready."

He sat back up and took a long sip of his stout, setting the pint glass back down. They'd agreed that Hermione would break the Taboo, for the Dark Lord's name felt like poison in Severus' mouth after decades of it being forbidden for him to speak it. He looked over to Hermione and nodded in encouragement. She let out a trembling breath through her nostrils and murmured softly,

" _Voldemort_."

Then she shut her eyes, and they waited. There was an agonizing, heavy stillness that seemed to suffocate the little pub. Then, finally, there came a loud series of noises from outside -  _CRACK! - CRACK! - CRACK! - CRACK! - CRACK!_

Severus stood quickly from the chair and held his wand at the ready, prepared for anything. He was unsurprised when the door to the pub slammed open and there were three wands pointed at him.

At once, he recognized Scabior, the scraggily-dressed Snatcher who had long been derided by Death Eaters as too low-brow to make it into the upper echelons of the Dark Lord's inner circle. The young man had been a student of Severus', having been a member of Slytherin House about ten years previously. There was Fenrir Greyback, and another plump man that Severus didn't recognize.

"Why, it's Severus Snape 'imself," Scabior said smoothly. Behind him, Severus could see the plump Snatcher pointing his wand at two tall, red-haired figures who appeared to have been Imperiused into submission - Fred and George Weasley.

"Be careful, Scabior," said Fenrir Greyback, as Scabior stepped forward into the small pub. "They may have been Confounded, or worse. Like the Dark Lord said… bring 'em back unharmed if you want the gold, eh?"

"Professor," Scabior said cautiously, crab-stepping forward with his wand held out, "Come with us, won't you?"

" _Stupefy duo!"_ Severus cried, and then, turning his wand to the other two, he quickly realized Fenrir Greyback had cast a Shield Charm around himself. He had no choice; he had to kill the werewolf and the unidentified Snatcher. Severus blinked once or twice to steady himself and gathered his magic at his core. He thought of Hermione; thought of how by killing, he was protecting her. The he pointed his wand at Fenrir Greyback and said, " _Avada Kedavra!"_ He jabbed the tip of his wand toward the other Snatcher quickly as the werewolf crumpled in death. The Snatcher's mouth opened, but Severus was faster. " _Avada Kedavra!"_

The green flashes of light seemed almost blinding to Severus' own eyes. He moved to stand over Scabior's Stunned form and stared down as Hermione dashed over to Fred and George Weasley, whose Imperius Curses were wearing off now that the Snatcher was dead. Severus looked at Scabior, at his bedraggled dreadlocks and his worn leather coat. With time, the Stunning Spell would wear off and Scabior would wake up. It would be most prudent, probably, for Severus to simply kill Scabior now and ensure that the Snatcher could not report on finding Severus and Hermione. But there was an aching in his stomach preventing him from doing that, and he wondered whether or not he actually had another Killing Curse in him tonight.

" _Expelliarmus_ ," he said instead, and Scabior's wand flew up from the ground into Severus' hand. " _Rennervate."_ Scabior slowly sat up, shaking his dreadlocked hair as if ridding himself of an insect. Severus twisted his wand at Scabior's head and murmured, " _Obliviate."_ Then he used a False memory charm to implant the notion in Scabior's head that he was a Muggle, that he was here in Blaenavon in search of a flat. " _Confundo_ ," Severus mumbled, and he watched as Scabior rose slowly to his feet, looking down at the crumpled forms of Fenrir Greyback at the other Snatcher.

"They look like they've had a rough night, eh?" Scabior laughed, and Severus smirked at him.

"Got into a bit of a scuffle," Severus said smoothly to Scabior. "Why don't you go have your pint somewhere else, if you please?"

"Right. Have a good night, then," Scabior said, and he turned and begged Hermione's pardon as he stepped past the baffled-looking Fred and George Weasley. Severus pointed his wand first at Greyback's body, and then at the Snatcher's. He murmured " _Evanesco_ ," at each one, and the corpses Vanished into non-being.

The Weasley twins and Hermione stepped into the pub, and Hermione shut the door behind them.

"Bloody brilliant work, Professor, I must say," said George Weasley, though the boy did not smile. "If you hadn't cursed my ear off, I might shake your hand for it."

"I cursed your ear off in the process of saving your life, Mr. Weasley, as well as the lives of several others that night."

"Yeah? How about Ron?" asked Fred Weasley then, and Severus felt a pit of shame in his stomach. "How about Remus Lupin? Mad-Eye Moody? You save any of their lives, then?"

"With war comes casualties, Mr. Weasley," Severus began, licking his lip delicately. "If you -"

"Please!" Hermione cried then, putting her hand up between the twins and Severus. "We haven't the time to argue. Fred and George… I have no idea how you wound up with Snatchers, but I'm assuming you broke the Taboo, same as us." Fred Weasley squared his jaw and then nodded resolutely. Hermione continued, "Right. Well, the truth is that Severus and I desperately need to speak with as many members of the Order as possible. We have some very valuable information about how to win this war."

"Yeah? Why should we trust you, exactly?" George Weasley demanded. "We were there, Snape, the night you killed Remus Lupin. We saw it happen."

"I do realize the difficulty in accepting the veracity of my claim of loyalty to the Order," Severus said with a little sigh, "but there is a great urgency here. If you could, at the very least, arrange a meeting between members of the Order and Hermione and myself… there is much to discuss, and very little time to waste."

Fred and George Weasley looked at one another for a long moment, as if they were communicating telepathically. Finally, Fred Weasley said, "Shell Cottage. Just outside Tinworth in Cornwall. New Year's Eve. Just the two of you."

Hermione answered on Severus' behalf before he had a chance to speak. She nodded resolutely and said, "We'll be there."

New Year's Eve was over three weeks away, but Severus could see why the Weasley twins were factoring in such a delay. They needed time to round up as many Order members as possible and to ensure they had security at the cottage.

Severus could not help but feel as though he were setting himself and Hermione up for an ambush as he held out his hand to the twins. Fred and George stared suspiciously at his hand for a long moment. Finally, Fred Weasley shook Severus' hand firmly and said, "New Year's Eve. Shell Cottage."

The twins turned to leave the pub. Just as they were about to step over the threshold, George Weasley turned back and said to Hermione carefully,

"Hermione… are you… are you safe?"

Severus knew what the boy meant. He was asking Hermione whether or not she felt endangered by being with Severus. The question was a circumlocution, an accusation of Severus being predatory toward Hermione. Severus pursed his lips a bit and watched as Hermione gave George a sad little smile.

"I'm as safe as anyone could be at the moment, George. Thank you."

She laced her hand into Severus' and squeezed gently, and Severus allowed the gesture. George stared at their interlocked hands for a moment and nodded, then turned to go without another word. As the door shut behind the twins, Hermione turned to look up at Severus and asked softly,

"Where are we going to go? We can't stay here for three weeks; eventually they'll figure out they've got two dead Snatchers and one who thinks he's a Muggle. And that the Weasley twins have vanished."

"You have your bag?" Severus asked Hermione, and she patted her pocket and nodded in response. Severus squeezed her hand and Disapparated, taking her via Side-Along as they left Blaenavon in a sudden whirling, pinching suction.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Hermione noticed when they landed was the sky. It was dark - black as coal and smooth like the softest velvet. The stars were plentiful and pointed as she gazed up, as though there were no such thing as a light bulb in all the world. The vibrancy of the night sky was so striking, in fact, that Hermione gasped aloud and clutched a bit to Severus' sleeve, asking quietly,

"Where are we?"

She'd known they were going to go to Scotland - rural Scotland, though nowhere near Hogwarts. That was all Severus had told her.

"Loch Enoch," Severus said matter-of-factly. "Just southeast of Merrick."

Hermione stepped forward carefully from the spot where they'd landed. The air was cold, crisp, and clear. She felt the crunch of wet granite sand beneath her feet, heard the delicate lap of the water's tiny movements, and she flicked her eyes up and down to see the night sky reflected upon the loch's surface. She could not close her mouth for disbelief of the beauty.

All the constellations were clearly visible - not just the little connect-the-dot versions that Hermione had seen in basic Astronomy texts, but the multi-dimensional relationships between the stars that had been related by the centaurs. She marveled up at the sky for a long moment and pondered the night.

"Is it safe to assume your bag contains some means of outdoor accommodation?" she heard Severus prompt, and Hermione was abruptly torn from her reverie. She turned to face him, trying to make out his face in the darkness. She nodded wordlessly. "Good," he said rather sharply. "Then I think it best we make camp and set up protective spells and wards as quickly as possible."

Hermione could certainly agree with that sentiment. She pulled her small purple bag out of her pocket and opened it, reaching around until she found the tent that had once belonged to Arthur Weasley's colleague, Mr. Perkins. Hermione had begun setting up her bag the previous year, before Dumbledore had even been killed, but she'd surreptitiously Summoned this tent the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding, at the Burrow. She'd left a few Galleons on the table where she'd been as payment, and she now wondered whether or not Arthur Weasley ever received them.

The mass of poles and canvas worked their way out of her tiny bag, and Hermione watched as Severus pointed his wand at the heap of materials.

" _Erecto_ ," he said smoothly, and the tent built itself in a fluid motion. Severus flicked his eyes to Hermione. "Go on, then," he commanded her. "Set up a perimeter of protective charms."

Hermione felt a small swell of pride at the fact that he was entrusting her with the task of guarding their camp, rather than doing it himself. She watched for a brief moment as he slid into the Extended tent, making sense of the charmed space. Then she cleared her throat softly and took out her own wand, gliding it around in careful motions as she incanted the necessary protections. She said them each multiple times, making her way in a large circle around the tent.

" _Repello Muggletum… Protego Totalum… Salvio Hexia… Muffliato… Cave inimicum…"_

When at last Hermione felt the area around the tent was adequately protected, she cleared her throat again, for her magic felt a bit drained from the effort. She lowered her wand and glanced over her shoulder to see the tent glowing a bit from the light of lanterns inside. She wandered between its flaps and was hit first with the smell of cats, and then the sight of the bright decor and enormous space. The Expanded tent concealed a bathroom and a small kitchen. Severus stood in the center of the room, looking mildly impressed as he took in the space. He began unfastening the buttons of his frock coat, folding it neatly after he'd shucked it off. He placed it over the back of an overstuffed armchair and set to work on the sleeves of his white dress shirt. Hermione suddenly craved a hot drink, for the air outside was frigid. It was getting toastier in the tent minute by minute, and she sensed that Severus must have cast a Warming Charm upon the place when he'd come inside. Nonetheless, tea sounded pleasant.

So she opened her bag and dug about inside until she unearthed a kettle and two mugs, as well as a tin of bagged tea. She cast a nonverbal  _Aguamenti_  into the tea kettle and set it to boiling, scouring the mugs out with her wand as Severus sidled up behind her. He slid his hands around her waist, and Hermione glanced down to see he'd rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. She shuddered as she turned round to face him. It was attractive enough, to be certain, to see him with his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. But something was nagging at her to keep her distance from him tonight.

Perhaps, she thought with a bit of an internal scowl, it was the fact that they were hiding in the middle of rural Scotland in a tent - because they were wanted by just about everyone, and if anyone found them, they'd be killed.

Perhaps, she thought with an angry, silent huff, it was because some of her friends were dead, and others in grave danger… and therefore the idea of frivolous sexual relations seemed uncouth at best.

Or, perhaps it was because Severus had used the Killing Curse twice tonight and wiped the memory of a third person. Yes, that was probably it.

Hermione sighed and watched Severus drag her hands up to his mouth so that he could kiss her knuckles. She pulled her own hands away hesitantly, feeling a bit queasy. Then, suddenly, she was hit with a shock of alarm, for she realized that her left hand was entirely bare.

She yanked her hand away from Severus as if it were on fire and clutched anxiously at her fingers.

"Where - where is my ring?" she cried, her voice an unhinged shriek. Severus furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head calmly. He said nothing for a moment, and then pointed his wand about them in a little arc.

" _Accio_  wedding ring…"

Hermione waited, flicking her eyes about in a panic and massaging her left hand with her right. But the ring did not appear. She stomped her foot and moaned softly, looking up at Severus with a miserable expression.

"Oh, Severus… it must have fallen off my hand as we were Disapparating! Or back in Wales; I've no idea. I'm so sorry…"

She watched as Severus shut his eyes and appeared to concentrate very hard. He pointed his wand straight out from himself and took a deep, steady breath. " _Accio_ Prince ring," he murmured smoothly.

Hermione felt her eyes go wide. " _What_?" she exclaimed, feeling abruptly horrified for having lost the thing. "'Prince' ring? As in… your mother's? It was your mother's ring? And I've lost it?" She clutched at her hair, ignoring the whistling of the tea kettle behind her, and began to wheeze frantically.

Severus put his hands upon her shoulders and gave her a heavy, deliberate stare. He curled the corners of his lips up into a reassuring little smile. "It was my great-great-grandmother's ring," he corrected Hermione, making her feel, if possible, worse. "I've Summoned it, and, as you know, distance makes no difference so long as the object is clear in the mind. I'm not certain if it will be able to appear through our charms and wards, but I'm not willing to chance taking them down. In any case, Hermione… it doesn't matter where the ring is. It's just a ring."

Hermione felt guilty tears suddenly boil over her eyelids, and in a rush, every terrible thought eating at her mind gushed forth in a violent, sobbing stream.

"I've ruined it! I've ruined everything. I've lost your family ring. I'm going to get us both killed. I've already gotten them killed - Remus Lupin and Ron. Oh, goodness… Ron… if I'd gone with him and Harry, Ron would be alive. But I didn't go with them; I stayed with  _you_ , Severus! I was wrong. I let him die. I let Harry wind up alone. I let Ginny get captured, and now who knows where she and Harry are? Poor Molly Weasley's going to have no children left and it's all my fault! My own parents have no idea I ever existed. I did exist! They taught me how to walk. They came to my ballet recitals. But they have memory of that, and they wouldn't know me if they saw me on the street. And it's all my fault. And now I've gone and lost your great-great-grandmother's ring, and I'm  _so, so_ sorry, Severus…"

She collapsed into the overstuffed chair to Severus' right, putting her elbows upon her knees and burying her face in her hands. She shook with cries for a long moment until she felt her face being pulled off of her hands. She looked up with puffy, tear-stained cheeks to see that Severus had silenced the kettle and knelt before her. He was kissing her knuckles now, like he'd intended to do, and was brushing the rough pads of his fingers over the bare ring finger on her left hand.

"Ms. Granger, are you quite finished with your self-loathing diatribe?" Severus sounded almost bored. Hermione just stared at him, confused. He sounded like his old self, like the teacher he would never be again. Who  _would_  he be now, she wondered?

What sort of future was there for them? If the Light triumphed, what sort of paths were they to carve? And if Voldemort could not be vanquished, how would death overtake them? Hermione shuddered back into tears, feeling entirely overwhelmed. She'd finally had too much, she realized. One person could only take so much, and she'd finally had enough.

She felt herself being heaved off of the overstuffed chair, carried in strong but thin arms, and she reached up to hold fast to Severus, afraid of letting go. Then she felt herself being set down between sheets and blankets, felt shoes being pulled off her feet. All the while she shook and heaved with uncontrolled sobs. It was months' worth of crying that she'd long held back, and it was all coming out at once. All of her guilt, anger, and shame were bursting forth at once like a broken dam.

"What about Neville? Luna? Who's keeping them safe?" Hermione demanded fiercely up at the ceiling. No one answered her. "You protected Luna from the Cruciatus Curse that Alecto Carrow hit her with… who's protecting her now? No one. And, again, it's all my fault. All my fault. Even those damned Snatchers - no one  _truly_  deserves to die, you know. And you killed them because of me, really. Everyone's dead because of me."

Hermione shook her head against the pillow and sighed with trembling breath. Somewhere in the distance, she heard Severus' slick murmur intone, " _Accio_ Calming Draught." She flicked her eyes over to see him with his wand pointed into her purple bag, and then a small brown Potions bottle flew up into his hand. He stalked to sit upon the bed and said to her, "You are speaking utter nonsense, though it is not impossible to discern why a person in your situation might be overwhelmed. In any case… take this, please. Both both our sakes."

He raised his eyebrows at her and uncorked the bottle of Calming Draught, holding it out to Hermione's lips. She tipped back the little bottle and drank the sickly sweet, syrupy mixture. She tipped her head back and said insistently,

"It's not going to change the fact that Ron's dead because of me… that I've lost a priceless family heirloom… that I've gotten people hurt and killed… that… that I…"

Suddenly Hermione lost track of her thoughts. The negative emotions that had been wracking her brain dissolved quickly, and a warm sense of peace replaced them. She could no longer remember why there were tears streaming down her cheeks, and, indeed, soon enough the crying stopped altogether.

"Better?" Severus asked her, tucking a small potion bottle into his trousers pocket. Hermione noticed for the first time how terribly attractive it was, the way his throat bobbed up and down when he spoke. She blinked heavily and nodded at him. "Good," he murmured, petting lightly at her hair. Then he shook his head and mumbled under his breath, "All that over a bloody ring."

He stood slowly and recast the Warming Charm that was keeping the tent at a comfortable temperature. It grew a few degrees more toasty, perfect for a night's sleep, and Hermione snuggled more deeply against the blankets. She stared up at the ceiling, feeling profoundly tipsy, as though she'd had three or four glasses of wine in quick succession.

"Severus," she mumbled, feeling him slide into the lumpy bed beside her. She glanced over to see he was wearing nothing but his black boxer-briefs, and she shivered a little. The tent went dim as Severus lowered the lights so that they could sleep, and only then did Hermione realize it must be terribly late. Or early. Whichever. She couldn't keep her thoughts straight anymore. "They'll never have to worry about what time it is," she said piteously, unable to help herself. "It doesn't matter when you're dead."

She heard Severus sigh sharply beside her. "I've already dosed you with an entire bottle of Calming Draught," he reminded her. "What do I need to do to get you to sleep for a few hours?"

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, and she reached her hands up to fiddle nervously with the corners of her pillow. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Severus."

He let out an irritated-sounding huff, and then he surprised Hermione by vanishing beneath the blankets entirely. She squealed softly when she felt her knickers being yanked down, and she gasped when she realized he'd moved to arrange himself between her legs. He pulled the blankets back so that he could look up at her, and he pushed her knees apart gently. Hermione squinted down at him through the dim light and tried to pull her knees back together.

"You don't have to -" she began, but that protestation was immediately drowned out by what Severus did next. He parted her knees again and had begun moving his lips up from her knee toward her groin, dragging his lips and teeth over the sensitive skin of her left thigh. Hermione groaned and gripped her pillow, her words dying on the air.

"It's just a ring," Severus whispered against her skin, and the warmth of his breath sent a shock straight to Hermione's core. She went wet between her legs, wanting him badly. His hands held onto her hips as his mouth moved upward. He murmured, "You can't bring anyone back to life. And none the bad is your fault. A great deal of the good is thanks to you. Now, Ms. Granger… will you  _please_  try to calm down?"

"Yes…" she agreed, arching her back and nodding frantically. His mouth had reached the top of her thigh, the crease where her leg curved toward her sex, and she choked out, "I'll try to calm down."

"Good girl," he said, planting soft kisses on her labia and purring from the back of his throat. Hermione's hands flew to nest in his hair, and she felt a throbbing heat between her legs. She needed him to make her finish -  _soon -_ or else it was going to spontaneously happen.

He was being lazy and slow on purpose as he dragged his tongue over her clit, steady and rhythmic and with just enough pressure. Hermione moaned and bucked against his mouth, worried that she was going to tear hair from his head as she finally moved her hands to grip his shoulders.

" _Please_ , Severus!" she cried out, getting ever closer to reaching the peak that she knew would send an explosion of calm through her veins. Severus chucked against her womanhood, his voice low and rumbling. The vibrations of his voice sent a fresh wave of pleasure through Hermione, and she shook uncontrollably as her toes curled. Severus' fingers dug into her hips, and she knew he could feel her need deep in the marrow of his own bones.

Then there was a firm, quick suction - his lips working on her clit - and Hermione completely lost control. Her fingernails raked over Severus' back and her pleasure detonated. Every inch of her skin was on fire, shaking and tingling. She'd gone briefly mad with the delicious agony of her orgasm, and she murmured Severus' name over and over until her voice was hoarse to her own ears.

Suddenly she was being turned over, moved roughly onto her hands and knees, and she could hear a desperate grunt behind her as Severus took firm hold of her hips and fiercely drove his cock into her still-trembling quim. Hermione cried out, for she was now hypersensitive to the feel of him, and Severus stilled inside of her. He hissed through gritted teeth, and she could hear the way he was struggling to control himself.

"I'm sorry…" he whispered dryly. He quickly pulled himself out of her her and gently turned her over onto her back to lie upon the bed. Hermione, still shaking from the odd mix of sensations, melted a little into the blankets and stared into his eyes as he leaned heavily onto his elbow beside her. Severus raked his fingers through his hair, and his cheeks colored a bit as he explained self-consciously, "It's… the vow… your physical feelings are quite acute to me."

"I know what you mean," Hermione assured him, smiling serenely at him and cupping his warm cheek in her hand. She reached down between them and wrapped her hand around his hard shaft, pumping her hand a little and feeling a swell of pleasure oscillate between his body and hers. "See?" she smirked at him.

Severus said nothing, wrenching his eyes shut and letting out a choked sound as he came messily in Hermione's hand. She watched his face contort as he finished - he looked as though he were in pain, though of course she knew he wasn't. He cleaned up after himself with his wand, but used a soaped-up flannel for Hermione's messy hands. She was grateful for that.

Drowsiness came quickly then. It turned out Severus was quite right about what Hermione needed in order to really and truly feel calm that night.

Just as she was drifting off to sleep upon the pillow, there was a rather loud  _whizz!_  and a sharp  _click!_ It sounded as though something hard and small had hit the wooden headboard above them.

Hermione gasped and sat up. Beside her, Severus mumbled, " _Lumos_."

His wand lit up to cast a pulsing glow that revealed the source of the sound. There, upon the mattress between them, was Hermione's wedding ring - the one that had apparently been in Severus' mother's family for generations. The green stone glinted in the eerie light of Severus' wand, and he smiled crookedly as if he were more amused than anything to see the ring. Hermione's mouth fell open as she watched Severus pick the ring up and examine it. He cast a few diagnostic spells upon the ring to make sure it hadn't been cursed, and then he reached for Hermione's left hand gently. She trembled a little as she felt it slip back onto her left ring finger, where it belonged.

" _Reducio_ ," Severus whispered, and Hermione felt the ring get infinitesimally smaller in order to fit her finger ever-so-slightly better. She looked up at Severus by the light of his wand and tried to hold back the tears in her eyes. She'd cried enough for one night, but once more she felt overwhelmed.

"Where do you suppose it was?" she asked him, and Severus cocked up one bare shoulder at her.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" he said. "It's on your finger now."

Hermione dissolved against his chest then. There was no Calming Draught, nor any deed between man and wife, that could dam her tears now.

He loved her, more deeply than she deserved. And a fair bit of evil may have come of it. But there was good, too. They'd already destroyed one Horcrux together, and they'd gained information about many more. She had an unfailing ally in Severus Snape, but their unity went much deeper than that.

He'd given her his soul, his very being. If she were broken, he would break. Of course, it worked the other round, as well. But Hermione suddenly realized that she didn't care about that - she would have minded more to lose him, in fact.

Together, they could be strong. They could be powerful. They could defeat Voldemort. And they  _would_ , Hermione decided, staring down at her left hand by the light of Severus' wand. They would vanquish the darkness - together - so that their souls might find a long, happy path.

Sleep came quickly then, and when Hermione woke in the morning, she had no recollection of her dreams, good or bad. It was for the best, she decided. She'd needed the good cry the night before, to clear her head and steady her heart for the road ahead.

She stepped out of the tent in the crisp, cold morning air and stared out at the glassy loch before her, for the first time in a long while feeling profoundly grateful to be alive.

* * *

 

**Shell Cottage**

* * *

 

The next weeks passed in a quiet, contemplative rhythm. Peas and beans and spotted dick were eaten - everything came from tins and was multiplied, the only way Severus and Hermione were able to increase their food supply in accordance with Gamp's Law. Tea was drunk, and books were read, and conversations happened during frigid outdoor stargazing sessions and after late-night love making. Christmas came and went with little fanfare, but neither of them minded much.

It grew almost comfortable, their life in the tent on the bank of the loch. It was easy, and Severus nearly forgot that the entire wizarding world was after them.

Then one morning, Hermione said from beside him, "Today is the thirtieth."

Severus groaned a little and dragged the back of his hand over his half-lidded eyes, still drugged with sleep. "So it is," he acknowledged. The next day, they were meant to meet up with the Order of the Phoenix at Shell Cottage. It was bound to be an uncomfortable meeting at best and an utterly dangerous one at worst. Severus and Hermione had spent the last few weeks avoiding the meeting in conversations. The imminent coming of New Year's Eve was an unspoken truth that was silently acknowledged and did not require discussion.

Until, of course, it was a mere twenty-four hours before they were supposed to be at Shell Cottage. Then the conversation could be put off no longer. Severus pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked down to where Hermione lay upon her back, her hair fanned out majestically about her head. She clasped her hands over her stomach and said,

"It's all going to be fine, Severus. The last time I saw the Weasleys, I explained to them that everything you'd done was on Dumbledore's orders…"

"I did not kill Remus Lupin on Dumbledore's orders," Severus mumbled, yanking his fingers through his hair and feeling it knot up in resistance. Hermione frowned at him, and Severus scowled right back.

Surely she was too bright not to realize that things had changed since the day of Bill Weasley's planned wedding. Ronald Weasley had been alive then, and Ginevra had not yet been used (by Severus) as bait. Lupin hadn't been dead then, either, nor Mad-Eye Moody. And George Weasley still had both ears that afternoon. The only thing Hermione had been required to explain away was the death of Albus Dumbledore, and that was easy enough. Too much had happened since then.

"Never underestimate the wrathful vitriol, nor the magical prowess, of a grieving mother," Severus instructed Hermione. She licked her dry bottom lip and sighed up at Severus in response before asking in a quiet murmur,

"Why  _did_  you kill Remus Lupin, Severus?"

"I had to do it," Severus said automatically, though of course he had no idea anymore whether or not that was true. Hermione did not argue. Instead, she swallowed heavily and said,

"I dreamed about the Elder Wand. I have an idea."

Severus sat up straighter and flicked his eyes to the little table beside the tent's lumpy bed. There sat the moss agate that Luna Lovegood had given months earlier to Hermione. It was said to induce pleasant or useful dreams, Hermione had told him. Severus had rolled his eyes and chuckled at the idea. Now he wasn't quite as skeptical. He cocked his eyebrows up as he looked back at Hermione, urging her to continue.

" _Ende of Deth_  indicates that all three Deathly Hallows must be in one's possession in order to the Master of Death. Of course, we don't yet know where the Resurrection Stone is. But Harry has an Invisibility Cloak - at least, I'm assuming he's got it with him. Then there's the Elder Wand."

Severus nodded slowly at her, and Hermione pulled herself up to sit, staring determinedly at Severus. She played anxiously with the hem of her nightshirt and said,

"I dreamed last night that you and Draco Malfoy were duelling. You Stunned him, and then you used your  _Oraverit_ to disappear. When you reappeared beside me, I was holding the Elder Wand and handed it to you. You flicked it toward a fireplace and the flames turned green, and you said, 'The Wand knows its Master.'"

Severus frowned deeply at her and thought. Draco Malfoy…

Then he realized what had happened. He thought back to that fateful night on the Astronomy Tower, the night he'd killed Albus Dumbledore. Of course, the Elder Wand had been in the possession of Dumbledore for years (or so his brother said). But the events on the Astronomy Tower that night had given the Elder Wand a new Master. Draco Malfoy.

"But I don't understand," Severus heard Hermione saying. " _You_  killed Professor Dumbledore… shouldn't you already be the Master of the Elder Wand?"

"No." Severus shook his head. "First of all, I did not use a Killing Curse upon Albus Dumbledore; I merely Disarmed him. The reason that curse sent him flying is because he had no wand when I disarmed him. It had already been hexed away from him by -"

"Draco." Hermione nodded. "Draco 'conquered' Professor Dumbledore, but you never conquered Draco. The Wand is still subject to Draco."

"Indeed. I believe that is correct." Severus nodded and let out a shaky breath. It was quite a bit to consider. Then the question in his mind quickly shifted toward what to make of this knowledge. He said to Hermione, "We need to go to Hogwarts. If the Elder Wand is still in Dumbledore's tomb, we need to get it before the Dark Lord does. Then, essentially, the course of your rather prophetic dream needs to come to pass. Somehow, I need to corner Draco Malfoy and Stun or Disarm him, giving me Mastery over the Elder Wand."

"Then Harry will do the same to you, and he'll have it to help defeat Vo - to defeat  _him_." Hermione nodded fervently. Severus felt a stab of unease at the complicated thought.

"All of this, of course, is predicated on the notion that we will, at some point, be able to  _get_  the wand to Harry Potter. And that we'd have the Resurrection Stone, which we currently do not."

Then, all of a sudden, it was as though someone had switched on a Muggle electric light inside Severus' mind. He thought back to the previous year, when Albus Dumbledore had come to him with the frightening marks of a lethal curse. He'd begged Severus to help him, to brew him a potion to slow the curse. Dumbledore had explained that the damage had been done when he'd put on a ring. He'd been tempted, he'd told Severus. Something about the ring had tempted him.

Severus could see the ring now, lying upon Albus Dumbledore's desk, its ugly black stone cracked and broken - defeated by the shining, powerful Sword of Gryffindor.

Just as the locket had been broken and defeated by another very powerful blade.

That ring had been a Horcrux, Severus realized quickly. He began explaining the memory to Hermione, trying to tell her every detail he could recall. He finished by describing the way Albus Dumbledore had been 'tempted' - by what, he would not say.

"The Resurrection Stone gives the user the power to bring back shadows of the beloved dead," Hermione mused softly. "That would be very tempting. Dumbledore knew about the Elder Wand. I'm certain he knew about Harry's cloak. He sent you to obtain the copy of  _Ende of Deth_  for a reason. He must have known about the Resurrection Stone - he must have realized that's what was in the ring."

"But, alas, dear Albus is nowhere near to instruct us upon the stone's current location," Severus considered. "And it shall be quite the feat sneaking onto Hogwarts grounds undetected to 'conquer' Draco and retrieve the wand."

"Maybe it isn't  _us_  who needs to do that," Hermione suggested, and when Severus looked confused, she offered hastily,

"There need only be a chain of Mastery over the wand, yes? What if we're able to convince some of the Order members - someone with existing access to the school, like Professor McGonagall - to get the Elder Wand and Disarm Draco before casting a Memory Replacement Charm?"

Severus nearly scoffed at that notion, at the thought of Minerva McGonagall battling a student - on  _purpose_  - and tomb-raiding the grave of Albus Dumbledore. But then he considered that these were the only ways of keeping Lily's son alive, and even then it was a longshot.

"I suppose we have much to discuss at Shell Cottage," he acknowledged. "Now… perhaps we ought to begin packing, eh?"

"It's our last day here," Hermione insisted, and she lay back down upon the bed and patted the empty pillow beside her. "Who knows when next we'll be able to just lie side-by-side like this? Come lie with me, Severus."

So he did, letting her curl her body onto his torso and cast her leg over his hips. She was warm and soft, and the morning was adequately long and lazy.

_The quietest calms come before the most violent of tempests_ , Severus thought with a cringe of unease, planting a soft kiss on the crown of Hermione's head. And he waited for the storm.

* * *

The air was considerably warmer when they landed with a controlled  _pop_  on the beach in Cornwall. Hermione looked about herself in the blinding midday sun, letting the brisk winter air whip her hair around her face. She thrust her hands into her pockets and felt her drawstring back there, safely containing every worldly possession she now had.

The sea was an angrily churning, jade green beast as it crashed hard upon the shore. Every wave brought a fresh thud and  _whoosh_  as the tide washed the sand.

Hermione glanced down the beach and saw a lonely-looking brown house, small but sturdy where it stood upon the sand. Thinking that that must be the place, Hermione whispered, "Right…" and determinedly set off toward the cottage. She thrust away all the fear she could, trying to tell herself that they were going to meet with friends.

"You know," she said to Severus as they walked, "Bridget Wenlock lived here, in Tinworth. She's the one that discovered the magical properties of the number seven -"

"Yes, I know very well who Bridget Wenlock is," Severus snapped from beside her. Hermione glanced up as she trudged through the sand and saw that he was smirking down at her. His hair was whirling in the air, wild strands of raven silk. His traveling cloak snapped and cracked as it billowed out behind him in the wind.

Suddenly there was a slight vibration that cast over the both of them, and Hermione heard Severus chuckle, low and rumbling, under his breath.

"What was that?" Hermione asked, her eyes going wide with alarm. Severus smoothly replied,

"That was us passing through their wards. They will have done them up specifically to keep out enemies. The fact that we've passed through means that we aren't enemies. Hopefully it will imbue them with some sense of trust."

"Stop saying, 'them.'" Hermione insisted, dragging her feet through the sand. It stung her skin wherever it flew up to hit her in the cold wind. "It's not 'us' and 'them.' The Order is our only hope now."

Severus said nothing in response to that. Hermione felt a bit of dread come back over her as they stepped up the walkway and paused in front of the ancient wooden door. Hermione stood frozen in her shoes and stared mutely at the door for a long moment before Severus cleared his throat beside her and said,

"I believe, Ms. Granger, that it is social protocol when arriving at a residence to announce one's presence by knocking." He cocked an eyebrow at her rather disapprovingly and raised his own fist to the door. He rapped four times and then pulled back beside her, holding his wand firmly in his right hand and letting out a little sigh.

There was the briefest of pauses before the door slowly creaked open. Hermione was not certain who she expected to answer the door - Molly Weasley, probably, or Arthur. Perhaps Kingsley Shacklebolt, or the twins, since they'd been the ones to set up this meeting.

She was therefore most unprepared to see Tonks in the doorway, her left hand resting upon the soft little swell of her pregnant belly.

Hermione felt an instant stab of guilt and pain and horror. This woman's husband, and the father of her unborn child, was dead, and it had happened at Severus' hand. Now, here they stood, face-to-face with Nymphadora Tonks. She looked mousy and weary, her brown hair grown out a bit and tied up into a small, messy half-bun atop her head. She wore no makeup, but her eyes and lips looked swollen and red, as if she'd been crying for some time. Hermione wondered if she'd ever stopped crying after Remus Lupin had died.

Finally, Severus spoke.

"Good afternoon," he said in a silky murmur, sounding unaffected by the presence of Lupin's wife and unborn child before him. Hermione knew he wasn't - knew he keenly felt the weight of his many deeds - but Severus was nothing if not an actor.

"Good afternoon," Tonks whispered back, her voice a cold, harsh clip. She deliberately moved her hand on her belly, and Hermione tore her eyes away. She heard Tonks' hoarse voice say, "They're all in here."

She walked into the cottage, turning away from them without another word. Hermione swallowed heavily and looked up to Severus. He squared his jaw and followed Tonks over the threshold and into the cramped entryway of the little cottage. Hermione followed, shutting the heavy wooden door behind her. The cottage was surprisingly bright and airy. It seemed as though it could be quite a happy place, under the right circumstances. Today was not that set of circumstances.

They followed Tonks through a small, sunny kitchen, and then Hermione saw that beyond her was a dining room filled with people. Some were sitting, others standing. All had once been counted among her friends. Now she had no idea.

There was Molly Weasley, seated at the table with a morose expression upon her face. Hermione noticed at once that Molly seemed to have aged twenty years since last they'd seen one another. Her red hair had greyed considerably, and there were deep wrinkles around her thinned-out face. Arthur Weasley stood behind her chair, his hands perched protectively upon Molly's shoulders. Beside them were Fred and George, and beside the twins were Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. On the other side of the table, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Professor McGonagall sat side-by-side. The room was heavy with the absence of Ron, Ginny, and Harry.

"Hello,  _Headmaster_ ," said Fred Weasley from the table. Hermione and Severus stood awkwardly in the doorway, and Hermione watched as Fred cocked his head and gave a sour little smirk. "Lovely to see you again."

"Let us get straight to the matter at hand, shall we, Fred?" Arthur Weasley tightened his hands upon Molly's shoulders, and Hermione felt a twist in her stomach as she made eye contact with the Weasley matriarch. In Molly's eyes, she could see the pain of losing Ron, the fear she had for Ginny. Just as she'd done with Tonks at the front door, Hermione forced herself to look away. She stared at her shoes and listened as Arthur said, "You managed your way through our wards. Did you break them, or are you truly allies?"

"Our swift disappearance from Hogwarts happened because Hermione and I are no longer able to keep up the ruse of geniality with the Death Eaters," Severus pronounced. "The Dark Lord discovered I was working for Dumbledore - that I've been acting for years for the Order."

"How did he discover  _that_ , exactly?" demanded Tonks. She waddled into the dining room, and Fred Weasley stood quickly from his chair to allow her to sit down. She gratefully took the seat and looked up at Severus for an answer. Hermione did the same, watching Severus' eyes tense minutely before he told the young Auror,

" _Consilio Legilimens._ "

There was a beat of silence, and then Tonks said in a soft murmur, to the rest of the table, "It's when two minds output Legilimency at precisely the same moment, upon the same target. Instead of hitting the target, they hit one another."

"The Dark Lord and I happened to attempt to enter the mind of Aberforth Dumbledore at exactly the same time," Severus said. "There was a moment of uncontrolled Legilimency in which each of us revealed truths the that made us susceptible to the other. I managed to escape and have been on the run since."

Hermione watched Kingsley Shacklebolt's mouth open in disbelief, and then Professor McGonagall asked skeptically,

"Well, what did he see, Severus? What did  _you_  see?"

Hermione decided to answer for Severus, feeling as though it were very important that they present a united front. She also wanted to make clear that she - an undying ally and friend to Harry Potter - was also linked inextricably with Severus Snape. So she said, " _He_  saw in Severus' mind the moment that Severus agreed to work for the Order. He also saw Severus administer me a… erm… a contraceptive potion. In direct defiance of his orders to procreate."

She hadn't meant, perhaps, to say that last bit, though it was important. Her cheeks colored with embarrassment and she went quiet again. Those around the table looked from Severus to Hermione and back again, their expressions ranging from disgust to disbelief. Beside Hermione, Severus cleared his throat quietly and said,

"And I was able to discern more information on a topic we'd already begun exploring - Horcruxes. The Dark Lord split his soul into many pieces. I believe two of the Horcruxes have already been destroyed - one, a ring that cursed Albus Dumbledore before he 'killed' it with the Sword of Gryffindor. I saw the cracked ring with my own eyes, and I made him a potion to stem the damage. But the curse was fatal, and it was one of the reasons he demanded I kill him instead of Draco."

Tonks scowled at Severus and looked as though she were going to interrupt, to say something. Her hair turned a rather putrid shade of golden-green, and then flared back to brown. She thought the better of speaking up and sighed. Then Hermione decided to speak up again.

"The second was a locket. Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley..." she waited until Ron's parents made eye contact with her, and then she tearfully said, "Before Ron was killed, he very bravely pushed thoughts of this locket toward Severus. That's how Ron was captured - trying to get the locket from Dolores Umbridge. Severus got the locket, and we destroyed it using a Wyvern dagger that was given to me by Luna Lovegood. Ron died a hero, Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley. He'll always be my hero."

Tears tumbled freely from her eyes then, and Mrs. Weasley shocked Hermione by rising slowly from her chair and holding out her arms in resolute silence. Hermione dashed over to Mrs. Weasley and collapsed against her, crying hard into her shoulder for a long moment as the woman wrapped her arms around Hermione and patted her gently.

"Hush, now," Molly said soothingly. "Ron wouldn't want to see you like this, hmm?"

Hermione pulled away, and Molly put her hands on Hermione's cheeks. She gave a gentle squeeze and smiled, though her eyes glistened with sadness. Hermione nodded and whispered,

"I'm sorry."

She slowly made her way back to Severus' side, brushing her shoulder against his arm as she situated herself beside him. There was a pleasant warmth around her right hand as he linked his fingers with hers, and Hermione felt as though she were going to cry again. But she managed to dam back her tears, and she listened as Severus said,

"There are other Horcruxes that still must be destroyed. The snake - Nagini - is one, I believe. There's a diadem, and a cup. I saw them in his mind. Most notably is Potter himself. Dumbledore revealed to me that the boy bears a bit of the Dark Lord in him from the rebounded Killing Curse… I believe Potter is a Horcrux, though I do not think the Dark Lord knows that. Of course, in order for the Dark Lord to be truly vanquished, all the Horcruxes must be destroyed. Then, and only then, can his corporeal form be killed and he will be truly eliminated."

"Then Harry Potter is going to die in the name of victory?" Minerva McGonagall sounded horrified. Severus sighed a little and spent a long while explaining their theory on the Hallows. He told the group about the Elder Wand - how Aberforth Dumbledore had revealed that it had belonged to Albus Dumbledore for decades. How Draco had almost certainly gained Mastery of the Wand the night of Dumbledore's death, and how Draco would need to be defeated to some capacity in order for the Wand to be ultimately used by Harry Potter. He explained his notion that the Resurrection Stone had been contained in the cursed ring, and the idea that James' Invisibility Cloak would be the final piece of the puzzle.

"With all three Hallows, perhaps -  _perhaps_ \- the boy may be the fanciful 'Master of Death' and survive an encounter with the Dark Lord," Severus concluded, sounding exhausted. "But it was made very clear to me by Albus Dumbledore that, ultimately, the bit of the Dark Lord inside of Harry Potter must be destroyed. I have no idea whether or not these two ends - his survival and the destruction of the Horcrux - are both possible, or whether they are mutually exclusive."

There was a very long silence then, as everyone in the room contemplated the enormous amount of information that had been bandied about. Finally, Kingsley Shacklebolt asked,

"And you, Hermione… you've been figuring all of this out with Snape? This is how the two of you have spent the past six months? Destroying Dark soul-vessels, researching Mastery of Death in order to defeat the Chief Death Eater?" Despite Kingsley's odd terminology, his tone was almost fierce. Hermione nodded at him.

"Yes," she affirmed. "All we've been trying to do is finish Dumbledore's work. It's just… we got caught."

There was another silence then. It seemed as though there was a weight being lifted a bit from the dining room as the suspicion and enmity that had grown up among its inhabitants dissipated slightly. Finally, the silence was broken when Hermione's stomach growled ferociously; she'd been far too nervous for breakfast that morning. Fleur Delacour stepped forward, away from her husband Bill, and asked in a delicate French accent,

"'Ermione, Professor Snape… come, right this way… I 'ave food, and tea, and wine. Make yourselves feel very much at 'ome here, yes?"


End file.
